Small town life is a bitch and then you die (but your dirty deeds live on in infamy). Maddie, the nice girl in high school married Brent, most likely to succeed. Twenty years later, they were still trying to rip off the labels they’d been given when they were teenagers. Brent’s new label seemed to be “adulterer, liar, embezelling scum whose parents wanted him to run for mayor.” Maddie started seeing the scoundrel for who he was and tried to protect their young daughter by telling lies about running into doors instead of the truth about being hit in the face by the girl’s father.

Her best friend from high school, Treva, and Treva’s high school beau turned husband, Howie, are partners with Brent and Maddie in a construction firm that’s been going great guns until Brent starts getting creative with the finances.

Just when Maddie’s life begins to implode for all of her friends, relations and neighbors to talk about on the grapevine, the high school bad boy (and nephew of the police chief), C.L. Sturgis, now a big city accountant, strolls back into town to check out the construction company’s books for his ex-wife and her fiance’ who want to buy Brent’s part of the company.

C.L. has attended to Mattie at several of life’s worst moments (her dad’s death when she was 10, Brent cheating on her senior year) and now he’s here just as Brent gets killed and Maddie’s accused by the grapevine of justifiably pulling the trigger.

Despite, the flare for whining throughout the first part of the story, Crusie provides a funny, sexy, thrilling look at the twists and turns of romance and small town life under a microscope. I ended up reading all night because I couldn’t put it down.