Janice Ryan Hall

Blood Ties Janice Ryan Hall

Blood Ties: Under the title Blood Relations, a finalist in the Mystery Category of the Writers' League of Texas 2008 Manuscript Contest After a brutal rape and beating causes Taylor Walker Campbell to miscarry, the panhandle town of Walker, Fla., rallies around her. When her husband, Capt. Cameron Campbell, returns from Iraq, he shoots an intruder in their home, coincidentally one of Taylor's attackers. Struggling to regain control of her downwardly spiraling life, Taylor finds her retired judge father ordered the attack to "protect" her. When she recalls the day of the attack, Taylor realizes a vicious misogynist remains at large. Crime continues to stalk Walker-arson, murder, breaking and entering-all with ties to Taylor, causing Pensacola cops to cast Taylor as the "queenpin" of a drug ring. The photogenic, charismatic Cam reveals a darker side: Taylor stumbles upon evidence of a torrid affair with a military subordinate. After Cam publicly accuses Taylor of an affair with Julius Perry, her 14-year-old black neighbor, she fears felony charges. Her mother enlists an unlikely ally to thwart Cam's scheme and subvert justice. Friends and family uncover the truth about Judge Walker's first wife, who presumably died in New Orleans five decades ago. When Taylor stumbles into a cold-blooded killer's tri-state drug headquarters, she's held captive.