Whisper Town by Patricia Hickman (Warner Faith, $12.99)
"The wagon ride turned into a grueling festival of screaming girls and hay-tossing boys. Jeb's woolen coat was prickly with straw and his imagination bristling with thoughts of Oz joining Fern and her family for coffee while he fended off attacks of hay. He jumped from the wagon, reminded Willie to see Ida May up the path, and then meandered back toward the tent site. He led the departing rabble by the light of a lantern and elbowed through into the sanctuary of the tent.
Deputy Maynard bellyed up to the remnants of pie salvaged for him by the ladies' food committee. 'Don't you look the scarecrow?' Maynard laughed.
'Spare me the compliments,' said Jeb. 'Any coffee left, Josie?'
The families gathered up their children and headed back toward their trucks and wagons.
'Sorry I missed the festivities, Reverend. We got us a for-real investigation up at Apple Valley.'
'I was hoping it was just gossip.'
'Nazareth hasn't seen this kind of business since, well, since your arrest. Hey, what's past is past, I always say.'
'The apple pickers told it right, then?' asked Jeb.
'Best as I can figure, someone came to some harm out in those orchards, but who it was is yet to be known. Nobody's filed a missing person on anyone. But we got a shirt that says that somebody took a beating.…' " --excerpted from the book
