In the sleepy hollows of Pontotoc Ridge, Mississippi-where secrets simmer like summer humidity and payment for a doctor's house call might be a dozen eggs-trouble has a habit of finding Billy Matthews. At twelve, the whip-smart grandson of legendary Doc Rayburn is a whirlwind of curiosity and chaos, stumbling into mysteries faster than he can dodge his grandfather's gruff lectures. A missing heirloom? A midnight phantom in the old mill? Billy's nose for mischief often drags Doc Rayburn into the fray, turning ordinary afternoons into pulse-pounding adventures.For forty years, Doc Rayburn had practiced medicine in Pontotoc Ridge, Mississippi, delivering nearly half the town's population into the world-often for the price of a couple of fresh chickens. At sixty-five, he still cut an imposing figure at six and a half feet tall, his frame as straight as ever. He'd worn nothing but rumpled surgical greens for so long that the locals barely noticed, but a stranger might mistake his unkempt nature and soft-spoken ways for a lack of smarts. Nothing could be further from the truth: the man was sharp as a scalpel, with a mind full of words he used sparingly, like a craftsman saving his best cuts for the finish.