As a teen, Samantha Fletcher endured a violent loss that she has spent the rest of her life trying to forget. Twenty years later, after finally moving a thousand miles away from rural Missouri, the forty-year-old school principal is starting to think that a better life may be possible here in sunny Phoenix-until a savage attack occurs at a local parochial elementary school.
When the violent perpetrator is linked to her institution, a public high school known as "The Ghetto," the police enlist Samantha's help to track down all who are involved...and discover their motive. She, in turn, recruits a teacher, two students, and a local barrio gang in the hope of preventing further violence.
But as the investigation continues, community hostilities escalate as questions of teaching ethics and school financing inequalities are raised. Striving to navigate her complex responsibilities while struggling to untangle the dark web that produced this nightmare, Samantha flounders to find a way forward.
About the Author: John R. Henderson is a retired sociology professor living in Flagstaff, Arizona. A graduate of William Jewell College, he earned his MA in education from Arizona State University and completed further graduate work in urban studies at the State University of New York at Brockport. Over his thirty-eight-year career, he taught subjects such as family studies, social problems, rural-urban studies, and the sociology of education. Elected faculty senate president at both Scottsdale Community College and Paradise Valley Community College, Henderson also served as chairperson of the social and behavioral sciences division at SCC.
Drawing from his experience in sociology and education, Henderson is now the author of three novels: Silence Is the Killer, a suicide tale; Death in Little Dixie, a mystery concerning the urbanization of a rural community; and The Principal and The Principles, which confronts the issue of violence in schools.
