Something is rotten at Hercules High School. Student Heather Sundergard has been caught cheating on the state’s most prestigious scholarship exam. One of Heather’s teachers, Carol Demeter, has been implicated—and fired by the school board. But Carol happens to be police chief Jim Otis. fiancée. Otis sees the fine hand in this scam of teenage femme fatale Josie Dobbs. But Josie’s “back east,” in college.

Or is she?

Jim Otis’ struggle to exonerate Carol sends him into his own small town’s underworld and into the snakepit of school board meetings. Accused of having an affair with Frank McAllister, a corrupt test proctor in Madison, Carol falls victim to the malignant mercies of board chairwoman Fiona Wills. Otis’ mission to clear Carol’s name moves into the teeth of a brawl between the violent Konicek brothers and on to a dive bar in the state capitol to buttonhole Frank McAllister.

Meanwhile, back in Hercules, Heather Sundergard contrives to kill herself and the local grapevine buzzes with rumors of Josie’s return. Students of Hercules High stage a near-riot in support of Carol, but the school board chairwoman Fiona Wills remains adamant on Carol’s expulsion.

After bullying the truth from Frank McAllister and staging a “panty raid” that seems certain to prove Carol’s innocence, Otis is outmaneuvered once more by his teenage nemesis. To rescue his girlfriend from Josie’s wiles and the vengeance of Fiona Wills, Otis must play a deadly cat-and-mouse game in a strange forest, pitted against the seductive and precocious girl who has been his bête noire since he arrived in Hercules.

Cheat is the fifth the award-winning Jim Otis smalltown crime series. preceded by Jailbait, Bastard’s Bluff, Woman Trouble and Dead Shot. Among nine honors received, the series was named a Finalist for Best Series in the 2022 Next Generation Indie Book Awards, Bastard’s Bluff was named Best Crime Fiction in the 2021 NYC Big Book Awards.