Book excerpt: Deputy Sheriff Jim Finne and an FBI informant are gunned down. A sinister, interstate drug cartel that stretches from southeast Indiana to the eastern Kentucky hollers is paying off local cops. Ruthless dope dealers and crooked cops become reckless murderers. Cops can't trust cops. Criminals can't trust criminals. Bodies stack up like fat cattle in a slaughter house. Garfield County has become a haven for the lawless-where justice is doled out to the highest bidder. Enter rookie FBI Special Agent Charles Simmons, recent Yale law school graduate and hometown boy. In Garfield County, Indiana, Charles finds a town he'd never known-a good-for-nothing underclass, drug pushers and junkies, cops on-the-take, and a community mired in mediocrity. Still, Charles rekindles friendships and repairs family bonds. But, a little good fortune brings the revelation of a dark Simmons' family secret. And, in the middle is Caroline Mattell, the alluring young fianc'e of a deputy, who leads Charles to the threshold of death. The Crooked Blue Line is the story of a man-son, brother, friend, lover, federal agent-desperate to define himself in a world of unfulfilled romantic expectations and inconceivable harsh realties.