Publisher's Synopsis
In an old pickup truck purchased in his need to travel incognito, Billy Walker forsakes the opulence of Palm Beach and catastrophic events that have hurled him into dark and fearful waters of existential crisis. He wanders for many days across Georgia, Tennessee, and Arkansas. He is searching for the perfect spot to leave this world on his own terms; he finds it in the remote interior of central Missouri's colossal Lake of the Ozarks. It is one of the largest man-made lakes in the world: 130 miles long - from dam to dam - with nearly 1300 miles of rugged, irregular shoreline; more shoreline than Lake Michigan or the coast of California. An excellent and private place to die, here, in this pristine landscape - the heart of America's heartland - where oak and hickory grow so thick a man can scarcely lead a horse and dogwood in bloom bejewel the crest of limestone bluffs towering like ancient monuments above the water. He buys a dilapidated house near the banks of Rainy Creek, a small tributary that joins the lake fifty yards downstream: "With one remarkable exception - a hole the size of a washtub in its cedar shake roof - the house looked pretty much as described in the realtor's brochure." The home's last owner, Clifton Crocker, has been dead many years. He bequeathed - in effect, a boat with no motor. And when Billy Walker rows it into JoJo O'Leary's life - a single mom tragically widowed, it is a collision of destinies rarely witnessed. Each has a gun. But only one shot will be fired.
