The small Texas town of Riverby is on the road to recovery from scandals and corruption that led to the murder of their beloved sheriff when the wife of an eccentric professor commits suicide. During a somber graveside service, her deviant son pushes the elderly funeral director into his mother's open grave. When the town's stately funeral home is destroyed by fire and a small girl's party dress is discovered in an abandoned shack, Riverby's survival seems threatened. Then a stranger steps off a train and hobbles across a field to free a man from a trap just in time to save his hand and possibly his life. The Circle of Hurt takes in this obscure and enigmatic stranger with the intention of helping him, but it is The Circle and the town that receives help. The chain of dark events is not broken, but light begins to triumph over darkness. Jim Ainsworth plumbs the depth of Southern and Texas fiction in his quintessential style. Skillfully treading the line between fiction and truth, he writes about characters he has known, places he has been, and paths he has traveled. --Dr. Fred Tarpley, professor emeritus of Literature and Languages. Jim Ainsworth is a master at creating characters and weaving a tapestry from the threads of life which are designed from unexpected events with colors of brilliance as well as darkness. He makes readers realize that man has a God-given need to be understood, loved, and forgiven. --Loretta Kibler, former teacher and school superintendent. Jim Ainsworth crafts characters and settings with down home comfort, sympathetic characters and scenes that keep us turning pages and coming back for more. --Writers Digest Jim Ainsworth's writing gives me a renewed sense of the tether that binds me to God. He shook up my world. --Amazon review by Sofie