Cypress Crown

Sheriff Tom Bracken has survived everything the Florida frontier could throw at him-its wildlife, its storms, and criminals more ruthless than any he faced in Chicago. Planning a Christmas Fair for the citizens of Cypress Run may finally be the thing that does him in... if the United States senator who's been holding a grudge for two years doesn't get to him first.

In December of 1885, two years after Tom traded a ruined Chicago career for a tin star in Cypress Run, the powerful man he crossed up north has come to collect-with bounty hunters, forged paper trails, and a federal hearing rigged to strip Tom of his badge and his county. And beneath it all, a grief that's quietly pulling his marriage apart from the inside.

Ellie Bracken has already buried too much. She will not bury her husband too-not without a fight of her own-and especially not at Christmas. When Senator Clayborne forces the Brackens into a corner no lawman's gun can shoot them out of, saving their family will cost them more than either is ready to pay.

But Clayborne underestimated two things: how fiercely the Brackens protect their own, and how badly Florida bites back.

Cypress Crown is the fourth and final book of the Cypress Run Quartet—a historical mystery-romance where the love story and the body count run the same brackish water. Featuring found family, redemption, true love tested by tragedy, legal tomfoolery, and... a circus coming to town? Also alligators. (Did you think there wouldn't be?)