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Fiction Murder by the books WRITTEN IN BLOOD By Layton Green 335 pp. Seventh Street Books Reviewed by Eric Petersen Mystery writer Layton Green is back with a new novel whose intriguing plot is sure to please. Detective Joe “Preach” Everson is not your ordinary cop. A former teenage hellraiser turned preacher turned prison chaplain turned police officer, he’s come back to his hometown of Creekville, North Carolina after working as a homicide detective in Atlanta. Creekville is a small, quaint little town that’s one of the few liberal bastions in a fiercely conservative state, a town where radical progressive liberals peacefully co-exist with their old school Southern conservative neighbors. Where hipsters and good ol’ boys go about their business and never seem to get on each other’s nerves. But as Preach Everson is about to discover, there’s a chilling dark side to the quiet, respectable town he calls home. The novel opens with the detective at the scene of a bizarre and brutal murder...