Start with a simple background investigation and then find your subject lying face down in a peaceful Smoky Mountain stream--assassinated. Just another walk in the park for Chief Sam Jenkins.What does a cop do when a routine chore turns into a nightmare? When a simple investigation into a man's background sends you crashing into a stone wall at the end of a blind alley does finding your subject murdered simplify your life? Sam Jenkins handles a case that spans the decades and the globe from his little police department on the "peaceful side of the Smokies."

A collection of six crime novelettes that take you on a trip through the more off-beat regions of law enforcement. Follow Prospect, Tennessee's Police Chief Sam Jenkins as he meets Gypsy conmen and a beautiful fortune teller in GYPSIES, TRAMPS & THIEVES, a gun show hustler and his right-wing militia cronies in HEAVEN'S GATE and a collection of pool hustlers competing for enough prize money they'd kill for in ALVIS IS IN THE BUILDING. A Chinese restaurant owner loses a little finger and feels the grip of vicious thugs from a Malaysian triad in THE SWAN TATTOO. The murder of an Elvis impersonator for a few bits of gold takes you on board GRACELAND ON WHEELS, and in NOTHING FITZ, an unlikely coalition of crooks on a National Guard air base are responsible for a brutal murder.

Cops run into all kinds of characters on the job. But when Chief Sam Jenkins meets four people from his former life as a New York detective, it throws him for a loop.The first was a low level gangster named Carlo "Carly Nickels" DeCenzo--lying on a slab in the Blount County morgue with Sam's name and phone number written on a scrap of paper in his pocket.Next there's Gino Musucci, infamous New Jersey crime boss who says he wants to retire and relocate--to Sam's town of Prospect, Tennessee.And there's Dixie Foster, Sam's former secretary and the woman who wanted to steal him away from his wife. Sam wonders why she's turned up after eighteen years.With Carly's murder still unsolved, another body shows up in a Prospect motel--that of a retired detective from Sam's past. And then Sam receives a letter from an old mobster who warns him about a contract on his life.Is this any way for a cop to spend his time on the "peaceful side of the Smokies?"

Sam Jenkins joins a combined task force hunting a serial killer called The Riverside Strangler by the local media. Complications arise when the lead investigator, the county sheriff's chief deputy is arrested and charged with police brutality. ¿When Sam develops the evidence to arrest the Strangler, everyone should be pleased, but subsequent actions taken by his mayor and the city council affect everyone at the Prospect Police Department and suggest that life there will never be the same.

When your high school classmate shows up on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List, can your police career get any more interesting? Prospect, Tennessee's police chief Sam Jenkins handles a cold case robbery-homicide as a favor to a beautiful treasury agent and clears the forty-three year old mystery of THE GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAIN BANK JOB. In MURDER IN A WISH-BOOK HOUSE, Sam investigates the most grisly killing of his career. Then, in V IS FOR...VITAMIN?, he works with an eighty-four year old partner to solve a suspicious death in a nursing home where all the suspects are well beyond their prime. Hollywood meets the Smokies in FATE OF A FLOOZY when an academy award winner is murdered during her love affair with a much younger man. And HURRICANE BLOW UP and THE BUTLERS DID IT pits Jenkins against some very lethal characters when he tackles eastern European hoods who intend on causing mayhem in Prospect, and bank robbers who flee to the far corners of southern Appalachia to escape capture.

TV reporter Rachel Williamson helps Chief Sam Jenkins with a classic fraud investigation. However, the case puts Rachel in jeopardy, and her abduction by a mentally disturbed man changes her life forever.Eventually Jenkins uncovers a significant clue and leads a team deep into the Smoky Mountains to rescue his friend. But once Rachel is safely home, they discover her problems are far from over.

Sam Jenkins is the new police chief in town and everyone wonders, will Prospect, Tennessee ever be the same? A LABOR DAY MURDER and A MURDER IN KNOXVILLE take the reader into the world of domestic violence with a smattering of political corruption. In BULLETS OFF-BROADWAY, the investigation leads Sam into the life of a victim who spent his leisure time reenacting the days of the old west and was killed with an antique revolver. The hard-boiled story of SCRAP METAL AND MURDER begins with a simple larceny and quickly escalates into the murder of a building contractor, infidelity and more suspects than you can shake a claw hammer at. And the off-beat stories, BY THE HORNS OF A COW and its sequel SERPENTS & SCOUNDRELS show the more bizarre side of police work as Jenkins looks for a stolen fourteen-foot-tall statue of a dairy cow and ends up among a group of snake handling fundamentalists who use their serpents in a deadly manner.

Sam Jenkins never thought about being a fish out of water during the years he spent solving crimes in New York. But things change, and after retiring to Tennessee, he gets that feeling. Jenkins becomes a cop again and is thrown headlong into a murder investigation and a steaming kettle of fish, down-home style. In true Jenkins style, Sam turns common police practice on its ear to insure an innocent man doesn't fall prey to an imperfect system and the guilty party receives appropriate justice.

Sam Jenkins's experience as a New York detective and Tennessee police chief may be varied, but none is more interesting than his encounter with Korean organized crime.Two former call girls, hoping to establish a legitimate massage therapy business in Prospect, ask for Sam's help after a Korean mobster attempts to extort protection money from them. Jenkins agrees to investigate but wonders, is their business really aboveboard?Sorting out truth from fiction in this complicated investigation becomes only a minor problem for Jenkins after a Korean girl, employed by the ex-hookers, is found murdered. And the trouble doesn't stop there. When bodies begin piling up, Sam finds it difficult to link the victims other than by their ethnicity. That's when he again turns to the women in his life for assistance in his police endeavors. His wife, Kate; desk sergeant, Betty Lambert; and TV news anchor, Rachel Williamson, all contribute significantly to the successful closure of two murders in Prospect and finding who killed a pair of thugs in nearby Knoxville.As often happens, an old colleague from Sam's days in New York visits his former boss and the touristy town of Prospect, Tennessee. Retired Detective Fred Mazzio becomes intrigued with the murders and volunteers to team up with Jenkins's assistant, John Gallagher, another ex-New York cop, and follow the undeveloped leads. The two former partners bicker constantly, but lend their fifty years of police experience to the investigation.