She's just a country girl who loves her dog...and her cat...and her pig. But a cold-blooded killer might suck the sweet right out of her bucolic little world.

Pence Lucklin has always had the luck of the Irish, though he's about as far from Irish as you can get. It is, after all, how he got his nickname, Lucky Lucklin. But it appears that his luck has run out in a big way. That's putting it mildly, I guess. Since Lucky just turned up dead, hanging from a tool hook at my family's auction business.

Was Lucky's death meant as a warning for me? Could this mean the return of an old villain? Will Hal and I be called on to help the local Deer Hollow police find a killer?

In the end, luck probably won't have much to do with the outcome. Luck can be made. And as death stalks the people I love, I'm fully prepared to force the hand of fate and create my own luck. Or die trying.