Sheila M. Britt

After fleeing an abusive husband with her six-year-old son, Tommie, Beverly is attempting to create a new life for them in a small town off the beaten track. Despite their newfound freedom, Beverly is constantly on guard: she creates a fake backstory, wears a disguise around town, and buries herself in DIY projects to stave off anxiety. But her stress only rises when Tommie insists he’d been hearing someone walking on the roof and calling his name late at night.

Briar County is in Southern Ohio—the gateway to Appalachia. People there move at their own pace. They hunt, they fish, they farm—but their secrets run deeper than the fishing holes that dot the countryside. And Dalton Edwards, DEA agent, is about to uncover a few after his boss sends him to Briar County on a low-priority assignment as punishment. His boss says it's a pot-growing operation, but Dalton thinks it's much bigger. Before his assignment ends, eight family members will be murdered under circumstances that Dalton knows have nothing to do with a hydroponic weed operation.