Hell’s Heart Dana J. Summers Synopsis \tOakley Florida, 2005. Frank Jackson and Diane Ferguson were killed with a pipe wrench. The problem? Frank and Diane have no connection. Guy Fowler was convicted but claims to have been drunk at home when the murders occurred. Fingerprints on the wrench say otherwise. Retired police officer Bart Long asks his son, small-town cop Jake Long to solve the fifteen-year-old double homicide. Jake wants no part of the soul-killing case. \tLater, a missing person case brings Jake and local loser Nell Stoner to Odell Byer’s trailer. There Jake finds drugs, cash and a dead snake, a venomous species found in South America. Byers, who is later found dead from snake bites, works for Dwayne Fowler an old schoolmate of Jake’s. Fowler is the son of the man in prison for Jackson’s murder. Jake questions him about the old murder. He also questions Cecil Jackson, who is connected to Byers’s car. Dwayne and Cecil were enemies in Jake’s school years, but he senses a connection. \tJake stirs up the Mexican Cartel, which is using Dwayne’s business as a front. After contending with a pair of mountainous killer twins and a knock-out woman who uses snakes to off her victims, Jake manages to rescue his wife and son from the woman, who intended to kill them. \tThe story ends with Jake using a bloody running shoe to solve the cold case. Dwayne and Cecil each had a reason to off a parent. Cecil’s father abused his mother. Dwayne’s abused him. Easy solution: Dwayne kills Frank with his father’s wrench. Frank is dead, Dwayne’s father goes to prison. Both problems solved. Busy body Diane Ferguson happened to walk into the murder. Her married lesbian lover kept quiet to save her own reputation in the small town.