The Skirt Man Hardcover - 2006 - 1st Edition

In retrospect, it is amazing how many lives he touched.
Of course, “Skirt Man” wasn’t his real name. His real name was Morgan Mason. But nobody ever called him that. And you can’t blame them. What else would you call an old farmer who stuttered and drove his tractor into town a few times a week with his dog yapping along at his side wearing a skirt?
 
The man.
Not the dog.
 
My husband and I live on Willow Keep Road, which is less than two miles from the Skirt Man’s farm. Small towns being what they are, though, Morgan Mason did his shopping in Killdeer, I did mine in Fawn Creek, and our twain had never met.
 
Not, at least, until . . .
Oh, so many things seemed to happen at once.
 
There was my job at the newspaper and my boss trying to retire. There was the benefit to raise funds for the town hall and our daughter, Merry, coming home to dance. There were those adorable Dillenbeck boys deciding to run the Skirt Man for mayor and then both of them falling in love with Merry at once. There was Creedmore Snowdon’s campaign to turn Killdeer into Disneyland. And there was poor Rose Gimbel secretly playing Robin Hood; Lillian Roadigger’s incomprehensible mood swings; Lewis Furth trying to start a range war; and that horrible Domingo Nogales Ramirez doing what he did to the old Hobby Hills Horse Farm.
 
And, of course, there was the murder.
 
The journalist in me wants to start at the beginning of all these events and proceed logically to the end. But the involved citizen in me who knew, liked, loved, or loathed so many of the participants can’t figure out where the beginning is.
 
So, I’ll just close my eyes, take a deep breath, try to pin the tail somewhere on this donkey, and hope that I don’t stab myself in the eye.
 
 Copyright © 2006 by Shelly Reuben
 
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PRAISE FOR TABULA RASA
"I was gripped to the end. The fires are brilliant and the secret is dark. Shelly Reuben is an expert witness and a dynamic writer."
-PETER LOVESEY, Diamond Dagger Award winner and author of THE HOUSE SITTER

"Tabula Rasa is a stunning novel. It shocks and revolts you, and then restores your faith in humanity. Reuben not only writes of fire, but with fire."
-DOROTHY SALISBURY DAVIS, Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America and author of A GENTLE MURDERER