For young Stanley Mitchell, Jr., 1958 is quickly becoming a year of newfound joys and thrilling adventure. Beginning with the discovery of hidden love letters, and an uneasy meeting with Buster Lighthorse Smith, the Dewdrop Drive-in's elderly projectionist and former reservation policeman, Stanley learns about blues music, Sherlock Holmes, racism, and lost dreams. Through the natural course of growing up, he discovers the true nature of his father's heart the love of his mother and sister and house servant, Rosy and becomes involved in a forbidden world that exists beneath Dewmont, Texas, like dirt and bacteria beneath a beautiful carpet. Stanley enters a forbidden world of secrets filled with death and darkness, jealous lovers, and ghostly occurrences--until he finds the real murderer of the young girl who wrote the love letters he found, and becomes the murderer's next target. Joe. R. Lansdale has won the British Fantasy Award, the American Horror Award, and six Bram Stoker Awards. He lives in Nacogdoches, Texas.