The Devil's Backbone

There were only two things that terrified retired black rodeo star and all-around gadfly Hambone Dolbey. One of them was water. So when Hambone's lifeless body was found floating in a wet suit, those who knew him best knew for sure that the cowboy had been murdered.
Two of them, a deaf-mute old rodeo clown and a former bull rider, ask CJ Floyd to find the killer. CJ has just chased down a rail-thin bail-jumper named Bobby Two-Shirts, earning himself a $3,000 finder's fee, a vicious bite, and a new enemy: Bobby's beautiful, long-legged sister. Driving bare-breasted through the desert heat, she is in hot pursuit of the man who put her brother away.
Now CJ has to watch his back and his front. He discovers Hambone Dolbey's colorful career included a kinky, forbidden, and potentially dangerous affair, and unearths a trail of deals and greed pointing to the mountainous land mass known as the Devil's Backbone. But while CJ hunts a murderer who has already struck twice, Bobby Two-Shirts's sister is laying a trap...

Robert Greer is a Professor of Pathology at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center.