Dead Man in a Lincoln

The investigation into the unlikely death of a local bully leaves two rural law officers perplexed. Whether an improbable accident or an orchestrated homicide, the answer lies somewhere inside a secret theistic organization that causes life-changing decisions for everyone involved.

Someone knows exactly what happened to the dead man and why. Called to the scene of a fatal car accident, small-town Sheriff Lawrence Gregg discovers a man dead as the result of a most unusual circumstance. When the man is identified as the area's most nefarious character, more questions quickly surface to perplex the sheriff and his cohort. Gregg brings a rare set of credentials to law enforcement, and as he digs into the mystery, his wife, daughter, and his boyhood chum find themselves, each unknown to the other, also deeply involved. Difficult choices await, tugging on both societal and family threads. Other factors arise when an exclusive, benevolent organization dedicated to universal understanding and the theory of intelligent design entwines itself at every turn. And what is the connection to the sheriff's driven, but enigmatic pal who is haunted by his Vietnam experience? What pulls them apart brings them together.

Jim Billman brings an interesting mix of knowledge and imagination to his books. Whether fiction or non-fiction as in Reform School! his readers appreciate his straightforward writing noticeably devoid of pretentiousness and over-stuffy description. Dead Man in a Lincoln is the result of a long-term aspiration to put together a mystery and the story of a family faced with difficult decisions; it's a search for truth and justice, it's an account of ordinary people, and it's deep enough to be challenging. Mr. Billman writes about what he knows in sharing the experiences of teaching, the travails of war, and the demographics and economics of rural America. His characters tell of their own lives in a manner and style that makes each of them unique. Besides soldiering, Jim Billman has fashioned two careers in his lifetime, sometimes overlapping, but mostly not. As an educator, he has seventeen-plus years in high schools as a science teacher and coach and nearly five years in community college as a physics, technical mathematics, and laser/electro-optics instructor. And with over twenty years as a light construction and residential builder and remodeler, he has met interesting people from all walks of life. Among his credits are the non-fictional Reform School! and an anthology entitled Headwinds compiled from columns written over four years as a stringer for a local newspaper. While teaching, he wrote a technical mathematics course guide and was a technical writer for the Cargill Company as they sought ISO 2000 certification. In addition to tests, experiments, and winning a competition for an innovative science curriculum, he has contributed to several periodicals and is batting 1.000 in getting his Letters to the Editor published. Mr. Billman is now in the midst of writing a coming-of-age novel about a young man who finds himself transplanted from a rural school to an inner-city one. Jim and his wife, Karen, have loved each other for over fifty years and are the parents of two talented daughters who are outstanding as professionals in their career choices, as mothers, and wives. The Billmans have two terrific sons-in-law that are exceptional in their own right, and of course, four precious, good-looking and above-average grandchildren.