Early's Fall
a novel set in Riley County, Kansas
Sheriff James Early finds himself matching wits with two men, one who robbed a bank and the other who murdered his wife – the first determined not to be caught, the second determined not to be discovered.
The murdered woman and Early’s wife were friends, teachers at the same school. The killing affects Thelma Early deeply. She’s pregnant with her first child and begins to question whether she can bring a child into such a harsh world. She discovers her friend’s diaries. The more she reads of them, the more questioning she becomes to the point of going over the edge, becoming a manic/depressive.
Early finds relief from his deteriorating home life in investigating the murder, an investigation that takes him inside the local Jewish temple and from there to a group who worked for the founding of Israel. The murdered woman had been a part of this group, causing Early to wonder whether the group’s enemies may have sent someone to kill her.
He also discovers the woman had been engaged in an affair with an Army officer at nearby Fort Riley and has to consider whether that affair may have gone awry, ending in murder.
It’s only when Early learns that the husband confessed to his father that Early knows who really did the crime. Then he must break the man’s alibi and find critical evidence needed for a conviction. The bank robber repeatedly interrupts Early’s investigation, tormenting him and eluding capture.
Early cannot tolerate anyone who abuses another. He becomes friends with a dining-car waiter while riding a train to Kansas City to interview the dead woman’s parents. Early had been in the Army, an infantryman in World War II, and the waiter, a black man, had been in the Navy, a steward on the Battleship Missouri. When a Secret Service agent assigned to President Truman’s security detail knocks the waiter down and refuses to apologize for his conduct, Early seeks out Truman and gets a resolution that surprises both him and the waiter.
You can also download the first three chapters as PDFs:
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Download an MP3 podcast featuring Jerry reading from Early's Fall
© Jerry Peterson.
