The Clay Hand

Death strikes in a coal mining town on the West Virginia border in this “impressive” mystery by an Edgar Award–winning author (Chicago Sun-Times).

Phil McGovern, the sports editor of an Ohio newspaper, cannot help envying his friend Dick Coffee. Dick travels all over the world reporting on wars, labor strikes, and revolutions; wins Pulitzers; and has a beautiful wife, Margaret, from whom Phil tries to keep his distance because he fears he could fall in love with her too. But when tragedy strikes and Margaret needs him, Phil accompanies her to Winston, a mining town on the West Virginia border, to identify Dick’s body.

No one knows what Dick was doing in Winston. No one knows if he jumped or was pushed off a cliff. With the inquest delayed and people saying Dick drank heavily and kept company with a local woman, Phil joins forces with Sheriff Sam Fields to determine if Dick was on the trail of another explosive story that might have blown the town apart—and if he died by accident, suicide, or murder.