Mississippi Mud [antikvár]

Prologue Monday, September 14, 1987 Biloxi, Mississippi The city's worst day began quietly enough, when a used car salesman discovered one of his cars missing, an anonymous-looking yellow Ford. The theft was strange, because the boxy Fairmont was about the least valuable car on the lot, so ordinary, it seemed invisible—like an undercover police car. Or a getaway car. The day ended quietly, too, with a muted popping noise, much like the sound of a newspaper rolled loosely into a fly swatter and slapped on a tabletop. Few people heard those nine innocuous pops, and those who did would never speak of them. Yet those sounds would destroy a family, alter countless lives, transform a city. Little would remain the same in Biloxi in their wake. Between those two events, Vincent and Margaret Sherry lived as they always had, taking no special precautions, exhibiting few outward fears. He went to the county courthouse that morning as always, where he had served as judge of the Circuit Court for the past eleven months. She, as always, worked much of the day on her one great obsession—exposing Biloxi's legendary corruption, in preparation for a mayoral campaign many Biloxians believed would earn her reign of city hall. During that last day, Vince Sherry also found time to jog, to kibitz with his law partner, to get his thick shock of brown hair cut at the local Air Force base barbershop (where he enjoyed the privileges of a retired colonel), and to gas up his battered station wagon in preparation for a trip Tuesday to Baton Rouge. The Sherrys planned to take the day off to visit their youngest daughter at her college