The Cruelest Lie

"The cruelest lies are often told in silence"
                            Robert Louis Stevenson

"The Cruelest Lie" is a richly textured story of treachery, greed, love and courage set against the atmospheric backdrop of Louisiana's bayou country. When an innocent boy is nearly destroyed by small town corruption and avarice, he sets in motion a deadly struggle between integrity and iniquity, truth and deceit.

Bo LeDeaux, at seventeen, is forced by fate and cruel circumstances to battle the ruthless Sheriff Gilbow Brown, a man who uses the law to fuel his insatiable appetite for money and power. Bo's confrontation with the sheriff is complicated by the murderous scheming of Tommy Sligo, a madman acting on the commands of an unforgiving God, and by Bo's own wild mother, who fights to preserve her ebbing sanity long enough to save her son from the sheriff's malice. Moved by her love for Bo, Ruby LeDeaux engages in a deadly struggle that plays her beauty and cunning against the sheriff's brute strength and unlimited corruption---a struggle from which only one can emerge alive and victorious.

As mother, son, and madman fight for their lives, they unearth a web of lies that grips their small Louisiana town---lies of past sins, heartless betrayals, and unremitting evil---until only one lie remains, the cruelest lie that threatens to destroy them all.