Darling Corey's Dead — Anne Wingate

Set in the Caddo Lake area of Deep East Texas, this novel unfolds as Detective Cheryl Burroughs and Postal Inspector Allen Conyers work together to find a robber, forger, and murderer before he has time to kill again. Inspector-in-Charge Jim McCain, from the Postal Inspection Office in Fort Worth, is ready to fight anybody who disagrees with him, while he goes out of his way to be as disagreeable as possible to everybody else. I based the character of Darling Corey on two prostitutes I knew when I was policing, the author says. I liked one of them; the other--who twice got away with murder--was at the top of my list of people I would like to be called out at two A.M. to work the murder of.