Of Blood and Water: A Virgil McLendon Mystery

In 1974, a crime wave shakes a small town as children are murdered while camping with their scout troops or parents; a few were kidnapped. A young deputy, Virgil McLendon, is forced to lead an investigation into the brutal murders while a nation watches, wondering at his new techniques. No one has heard of profiling and few know how to read a crime scene. Eventually, these methods will shape the new Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI, but in 1974, they are thought to be strange. Virgil McLendon feels he is chasing ghosts as the killers kidnap young people, torture victims, leave a trail of dead campers, and seek to shock an entire town with the bloodshed and cruelty. As the body count rises, he feels the answers are close. Maybe far too close. Each act is more violent the last, and the serial killers decide to go after the local law enforcement department as well. It's a battle of brains, and nothing is as it seems. Of Blood and Water explores "nature vs. nature", family traditions, the beginnings of a new way to track criminals that will be called behavioral analysis, and the last of the innocence, as a nation changes. The face of justice will be turned aside, and vengeance may rule the case. The Oklahoma campground murders, a true crime case, adds reality as McLendon pushes self-doubt away, and chases the killers. The first in the Virgil McLendon series, Of Blood and Water, is where the deputy begins learning how to hunt criminals...and where he gains a taste for the chase.