The world's greatest cutting horse, Bad Apple, has been shot in his paddock. The grieving owner, Rex Pattee, wants to know who did it and why. He hires a livestock detective, Cletus Parr, with an office in the stockyards, to find out. The homespun Parr is soon talking to jet set horse owners, who think he's a rube. And that is an asset. He slowly figures out who did it— and just in time.

Richard S. Wheeler is the author of over seventy novels, mostly set in the American West. He has won six Spur Awards from Western Writers of America, and the Owen Wister Award for lifetime contributions to western literature.