Buckner’s Move: A James Buckner Novel

by Christopher C. Gibbs

Martha Jane Buckner, crime reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, gets caught in a crossfire between criminal gangs in St. Louis. It’s 1929, and with Prohibition going strong, there’s a lot of money to be made in illegal booze. Her best source is killed and Marty almost dies in a hail of buckshot. She turns for help to her friend Elroy Dutton, gambler and speakeasy owner in her old hometown of Corinth, Missouri. Her brother, Corinth police chief James Bolivar Buckner, finds out and follows Dutton to St. Louis. Working with St. Louis private detective Alonso Harris, Bucker and Dutton have to protect Marty, figure out who’s trying to kill her, and stop them. Meanwhile, a wealthy young man is found in Corinth, dead of alcohol poisoning. With Buckner in the city, Corinth Officers James Shotwell and Michael Mullen work to learn the young man’s identity, and backtrack him to find out why he ended up dead in an alley in Corinth.

200 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 25, 2021

About the author

Christopher C. Gibbs was born in California and raised in Missouri. He attended college in Colorado and received his Ph.D. in History from the University of Missouri in 1980. He served for 18 months with the Military Police in Vietnam. He lives with his family, and teaches history, in New Jersey. He is the author of numerous non-fiction books and articles as well as the Highland County Mystery series of crime novels featuring James Buckner.