The Velveteen Serpent

No one can remember a murder ever being committed in the small town of Tobias Springs, Missouri. Suddenly, within a day of each other, there are two. A quiet elderly woman with no known enemies and, on the other side of town, the local bad boy who most everyone agrees needed killin.

Mike Maldonado, the only PI in town, is asked to investigate the womans murder on behalf of her neighbor, who the police have taken into custody. As he follows clues as far away as Chicago and Joliet Prison, to as close to home as the local convenience store, Mike finds that all little old ladies arent as innocent as they seem, and bad boys are sometimes even worse than imagined.