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Arresting a Blanton was always going to be bad news, but things are about to get even worse for Sheriff Milt Kovak. "Everyone in Prophesy County knows that you don t mess with the dim-witted, in-bred Blantons. So when Milt gets a call to say that Darrell Blanton has shot dead his wife, he s expecting a rough ride. Arresting Darrell and putting him in the slammer may have been surprisingly easy, but things are about to get a whole lot worse. Eunice Blanton, Darrell s mama, takes a dim view of her son s arrest and decides to storm the Longbranch Inn where Milt s partner, Jean McDonnell is hosting a bachelorette party for Holly Humphries. With the women taken hostage, Eunice s terms are unsurprisingly simple: release her boy or a hostage gets shot every ten minutes. But there s a problem: Darrell has been found dead in his cell, with not a mark on him . . .