Autumn on the Edge: A Grey Ghosts Mystery (Chillicothe, IL)

What does a small town miss when it’s watching the wrong thing?In the autumn of 1957, Chillicothe, Illinois is riding high. The Grey Ghosts are undefeated, Friday nights belong to Cutright Field, and Second Street is alive with the kind of energy that only a winning season can bring. But while the town’s eyes are on the scoreboard, something else is moving quietly beneath its streets.When a carnival arrives at exactly the right moment and a new face settles into town with an ease that doesn’t quite fit, Fire Chief Gail “Mike” Myers begins to notice what others have already walked past. Small things. A mark on a curb. A truck parked where it shouldn’t be. A question nobody has thought to ask yet.Ron Taylor sees it too. The Grey Ghosts’ senior quarterback has spent the season reading defenses. Now he’s reading something else entirely. A pattern that connects the carnival to the town, the town to its history, and its history to something no one in Chillicothe is ready to find.In a town this small, the best hiding place is right in the open.Set against the backdrop of a perfect small-town football season, Autumn on the Edge is a slow-burning mystery of historical fiction that moves on two tracks at once. One measured in touchdowns, the other in secrets. With a cast of sharply drawn characters and a town that feels every bit as alive as the people walking its streets, this is a story about what a community misses when it’s looking the other way. Read more