They call it "The Hangman's Tree." Everyone in Marfa, Texas, knows about the old madrone tree out on the Lacy ranch. Town lore says the tree's strange crimson bark is colored by the blood of thirteen men--each of whom met his death by hanging from the tree's sturdiest branch. It's been years since the last lynching--until local troublemaker Danny Lacy is discovered one blistering morning hanging dead from the tree, a hangman's knot around his neck. And now it's up to Texas Rangers Claude Groves and Carla Jenkins to find some answers. As Claude and Carla sift through dead-end clues and uncooperative witnesses, they learn that most folks in town suspect that Danny's murder was a simple case of a fight gone too far. But when the Rangers find a secret drug-making lab right in Danny's house, they know they're dealing with something much more complicated. And the answers they seek are closer than they realize. For somewhere in town, a silent witness is hiding what she knows--from a killer who will stop at nothing to silence her....

Genre: Mystery