Brandon, MS: Dogwood Press Books (Pub date: April 1, 2024)

Hardback. Signed.

As new in dust jacket.

In 1951, wide-open gambling is both a way of life for fun-loving Biloxi residents and a way of enticing tourists with post-war money to burn. However, that’s not the only thing burning, as one nightclub after another is erupting in flames.

Mac Simpson, a fresh-faced eighteen-year-old from Savannah, Georgia, is studying electronics at Keesler Air Force Base as part of his four-year commitment to the country he loves. When Mac meets Vickie Burns, a gorgeous musician with a beautiful voice who dreams of sharing the stage one day with Hank Williams, he thinks he’s found the girl of his dreams.

But trouble looms in paradise. Vickie’s ex-fiancée threatens Mac when belittling the airman doesn’t drive the couple apart. And when Mac and Vickie recognize a young man who seems to turn up at nearly every fire scene and question him, are they now in danger?

Then there’s Carlo Bandini, shockingly released from prison in Angola and eager to eliminate Judge David Tauzin, whose testimony helped put him behind bars two decades earlier. Judge Tauzin married Cradle in the Oak heroine Carrie Burns nearly a half century ago, and the eighty-year-old patriarch is Vickie’s grandfather and will do anything to protect his family.

A fascinating work of historical fiction with riveting, real-life testimony from the U.S. Senate committee hearing about the damaging effects of gambling on Keesler personnel, Sunset in the Sound is a satisfying coda to Candace Cox Wheeler’s Biloxi-based trilogy. Enjoy the beautiful sunset over the Mississippi Sound as you cruise Highway 90 in your cherry-red convertible, but keep a sharp eye on your rear-view mirror . . . with life coming at you fast in Biloxi, you never know who or what might be after you.

A fourth-generation Biloxi, Mississippi, native, Candace Cox Wheeler is a partner in the law firm of Wheeler and Wheeler, PLLC, where she has worked alongside her husband, David, since 1981 and raised two sons. She is a graduate of the University of Southern Mississippi, and the University of Mississippi Law School. Sunset in the Sound is her third novel.