Primary Target: An Owen Allison Mystery

Ten years after California Governor Red Davison engineered the collapse of Owen Allison's consulting firm, Owen crosses paths with the Davison family again. A win in the West Virginia primary is all Red's son Jason needs to capture his party's presidential nomination. Reporter Tom O'Day believes that votes are for sale. Sheriff Thad Reader enlists Owen's help to keep his county clean, but Owen is sidetracked when one of the partners in his failed firm commits suicide and old records are stolen. As the Davison campaign is rocked by the disappearance of an aide, a bomb explodes in Owen's home office. Is the bomber trying to destroy records of the past, or is Owen the primary target?

About the Author
Billheimer, John: - John Billheimer, a native West Virginian, lives in Portola Valley, California. He holds an engineering Ph.D. from Stanford and writes the "funny, sometimes touching," Owen Allison mystery series set in Appalachia's coalfields. The Drood Review voted his first book, The Contrary Blues, one of the ten best mysteries of 1998. Four subsequent novels, Highway Robbery, Dismal Mountain, Drybone Hollow and Stonewall Jackson's Elbow, explore a variety of Mountain State scams, scandals and frauds. Primary Target is the sixth book in the series. Billheimer has also written Field of Schemes and A Player to be Maimed Later, entries in a mystery series featuring sportswriter Lloyd Keaton, as well as Baseball and the Blame Game, a nonfiction look at scapegoating in the major leagues, and Hitchcock and the Censors, a look at all forms of movie censorship and how Alfred Hitchcock coped with them. www.johnbillheimer.com