Mission Improbable

The year is 2003, nearly thirty years after the Vietnam War. Blanche 'Bang' Murninghan has settled onto the dock at the Peel 'n Eat Pier on Santa Maria Island with a draft beer, hoping a sheepshead will take her bait. The sun is out and the heat is building, and she has no idea that a woman has been watching her from the fishing hut. That changes when the stranger steps up beside her and upends the calm of this quiet Gulf coast town.

The visitor is Jean McMahon, who has come to ask for help. Word has spread around town that Blanche is a gifted amateur sleuth, after she helped solve a friend's murder and outmaneuvered some drug-dealing land developers. Jean believes she needs exactly that persistence and stubbornness. Her request is far from simple: she wants Blanche to travel to Vietnam and search for Jean's mother.