Set in the mid-1970s Ozarks, Nothing More Dangerous is a coming-of-age story about high school freshman Boady Sanden, a young man just waiting for the chance to shake the dust of his crummy little town off his feet and escape into the larger world. But the bicentennial summer of 1976 changes everything when he becomes embroiled in the case of one Ms. Lida Poe, an African American woman whose abrupt disappearance has the locals buzzing with pernicious gossip and speculation. Many believe she is guilty of embezzlement, and worse, while others merely wonder whether she met an untimely end. Boady doesn’t know it yet, but he’s about to become an important part of her story, placing him and those dear to him in mortal danger.

As Edgar- and Anthony 
Award-nominee Allen Eskens states in an author’s
 note, his latest effort, begun in 1991, is an intimate 
exploration of “the notions 
of prejudice and racism,”
 an elegiac reflection on a 
specific time and place. But, similar to Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, it’s about so much more. It reflects on the bonds and responsibilities of family and friendship, of mistakes past and present, and one’s responsibilities to others. That it’s so well written and plotted, and that it contains such an intriguing mystery at its core, is just icing on the proverbial literary cake.