The Blackstone Commentaries

When Charlie Dugan, tough but fair-minded sheriff of Blackstone County in western North Carolina, receives a call to investigate a shooting one night, what he finds is a family whose car has been shot up in an apparent case of mistaken identity. What he also learns is that the driver of the vehicle from which the shots were fired may have been Doc Pemberton, wild but popular surgeon, county commissioner, and member of an old, politically powerful family. Pemberton was the man who, years before, procured Dugan his first job in the county and later urged him to run for sheriff. Since then, while using each other for their mutual political ends, the two have shared a wary respect.
Up for election for his third term as sheriff, the popular Dugan is an expected shoo-in. Because no one was hurt in the shooting, he is urged to drop the investigation. But the outrage, the demands for fair treatment and the courage of the family whose lives were threatened force Dugan to confront the class structure of the society in which he grew up, as well as his core beliefs about law and human dignity. Against his professional and political instincts, he pursues the investigation.

John R. Riggin graduated from Haverford College, served as a medic during the Vietnam War, attended graduate school at Vanderbilt University, worked as a small-town police officer, newspaper reporter and editor, and television producer. His war novel, Free Fire Zone, was published by W.W. Norton & Co. in 1984. He lives in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts