Bill Crider

First, someone steals several valuable toy soldiers from the collection of the dean of a small liberal arts school. The dean asks Carl Burns, Chair of the English Department, to look into things. Then a college board member is killed, and one of the stolen soldiers is found at the scene. After another attempted murder, another soldier is found, making a clear link between the stolen toys and the shooting. Burns begins asking questions and finds himself...

The person who fires the live bullet that hits semiretired celebrity weatherman Stanley Waters during a reenactment of the Battle of Higgins probably didn't do it by accident, and the bullet that creases Stanley's skull kills local businessman Rance Wofford. Superficially wounded but seriously motivated, Stanley takes it upon himself to find out who in his Virginia hometown pulled the trigger.