Fools Rush In — Edward Gorman / Ed Gorman

MURDER...AND JUSTICE FOR ALL

Summer 1963. In suburban Black River Falls, Iowa, there's more than just politics behind a troubled judge's decision to have private investigator Sam McCain probe a blackmail scheme involving a powerful senator's daughter, Lucy, and David Leeds, the black student she was dating. When the blackmailer, a shady photographer named Richie Neville, and David are found murdered, local cops assume it was racially motivated. Sam suspects, after finding wads of cash and damaging photos of other victims, that perhaps the only intended victim was the extortionist shutterbug.

Racial tensions leave no shortage of suspects, and Lucy's bigoted ex-boyfriend, a racist motorcycle gang and Richie's scheming brother all fit into the puzzle somewhere. Sam probes beneath the serene simplicity of an Iowa town in the sixties to find the darker motivation that drives a killer.