by Glenda Stewart Langley

Murder in Mesquite Springs is the story of a young man named Thomas Earl Grumbacher, or 'Bubba' to his family and friends. Set in Skagg's Bar-B-Q in a fictional town in South Texas, the story is narrated by the long-suffering Monique, a waitress at Skagg's. It is through Monique's eyes that the reader sees the effects of Bubba's descent into the shadowy world of a political campaign run by a racist organization called 'The Circle.' The people in Bubba's life fail to prevent him from getting involved with The Circle because, as Monique puts it, 'When he first joined up with this new group of friends of his, at first the changes in Bubba weren't all bad. For the first time in his life, Bubba seemed to actually be taking pride in himself.' But as the story progresses, Bubba and the people around him are drawn further and further down into a world of deception, crime, and ultimately, murder.