Debby Guelker

DCI Harry Grimm hates getting sick. Fighting a terrible cold, the under-the-weather detective is already pushing his limits by going house hunting with his girlfriend. So, when he’s called out to investigate a body gruesomely displayed in a field as a scarecrow, he can’t see how his day can get any worse. That is, until another body turns up.

Alex Sand was spending the evening at home playing basketball with his two young sons when all three were shot in cold blood. A wealthy federal judge, there’s no short list of people who could have a vendetta against Sands, but the gruesome murders, especially that of his children, turn their St. Paul community on its head. Sand was on the verge of a major donation to a local housing charity, Heart/Twin Cities, and with the money in limbo, eyes suddenly turn to his grieving widow, Margaret Cooper, to see what she might do with the money.

The thrilling new novel in the number one New York Times best-selling series. In Southeast Minnesota, down on the Mississippi, a school board meeting is coming to an end. The board chairman announces that the rest of the meeting will be closed, due to personnel issues. “Issues” is correct. The proposal up for a vote before them is whether to authorize the killing of a local reporter. The vote is four to one in favor. Meanwhile, not far away, Virgil Flowers is helping out a friend by looking into a dognapping, which seems to be turning into something much bigger and uglier.

From a New Mexico arroyo, a bullet-ridden body has been mysteriously dragged to a highway. In a small town, a lawman is swamped by complaints of coyote attacks. On Navajo land, a young man faces the truth about who he is, where he comes from, and where he must go. Investigating the murder of a Navajo leader, Sheriff Cliff Lansing comes up against an official whitewash that has branded the victim a drug dealer. But Lansing's deputy, Gabe Hanna, has already made a connection between the dead man and a multimillion-dollar timber deal on Navajo land.