HOME FIRES

Sheriff Hank Worth is one of the first on the scene of the fireworks warehouse which exploded suddenly, killing fourteen employees plus the owner. As the bodies are pulled from the smoldering ruins the identification process begins.

Chief Deputy Sheila Turley returns early from medical leave to assist, while Hank delves deeper into the complicated situation growing at the morgue. He soon discovers that the previous forensic pathologist, who recently passed away, was hasty at best and negligent at worst. One particular implication of that discovery shakes Hank's world off its axis... With Hank secretly investigating his shocking discovery, the case of the explosion continues to stretch his law enforcement team to the brink, and when the remains of an unidentified fifteenth body are pulled from the warehouse - killed by a bullet to the head - tensions reach breaking point. Just what happened in that building in the moments before the explosion? And with everything being thrown at Hank and his team, can they unravel the mysteries in time to save Branson from yet more heartbreak? Claire Booth spent more than a decade as a daily newspaper reporter, much of it covering crimes so convoluted and strange they seemed more like fiction than reality. Eventually, she had enough of the real world and decided to write novels instead. Her Sheriff Hank Worth mystery series takes place in Branson, Missouri, where small-town Ozark politics and big-city country music tourism clash in, yes, strange and convoluted ways.