Book excerpt: He was as rare as a three-dollar bill . . . an honest man in the town of French Bayou - that was crowding Phenix City out of corruption’s first place. He was young Deputy Sheriff Andy Latour, with enough stern morality for someone to have set an assassin on his trail. But Latour dodged the bullets, and now it was urgent that his voice be silenced. So - a phone call in the night, a drive out of town, the thud of a blackjack. And when Latour woke to daylight he was ringed around by hard, watchful men, accused of the brutal rape of a gorgeous young redhead - and the murder of her aged husband. And even when Latour crashed jail, the word went out to bring him back dead . . .