Lyle Hovde lives a mostly content life in rural Wisconsin with his wife, Peg, daughter, Shiloh, and six-year old grandson, Isaac. After a troubled adolescence, Shiloh has become deeply involved with an extremist church, and the devout pastor courting her is convinced Isaac has the spiritual ability to heal the sick. When the church's radical belief system threatens Isaac's safety, Lyle is forced to make a decision from which the family may not recover....

Words, Wisconsin, an anonymous town of only a few hundred people. But under its sleepy surface, life rages. Cora and Graham guard their dairy farm, and family, from the wicked schemes of their milk co-op. Lifelong paraplegic Olivia suddenly starts to walk, only to find herself crippled by her fury toward her sister and caretaker, Violet. Recently retired Rusty finds a cougar living in his haymow, dredging up haunting childhood memories. Winifred becomes...

Edgar Award finalist and author of Bury the Lead, a Today Show Book Club pick, returns with a tale of murder and deadly secrets in an ultra-secretive religious community.
DEAD CENTER finds Andy Carpenter reentering the dating scene with comic results. He is surprised at what a hot ticket he seems to be, and this proves to be a mixed blessing at best. His friends are all too eager to provide advice and guidance, but of...

In Wisconsin, fourth-grader Ida B spends happy hours being home-schooled and playing in her family's apple orchard, until her mother begins treatment for breast cancer and her parents must sell part of the orchard and send her to public school.

1908. Left at an orphanage as a child, Thea Reed vowed to find her mother someday. Now grown, her search takes her to turn-of-the-century Pleasant Valley, Wisconsin. When the clues she finds lead her to a mental asylum, Thea uses her experience as a postmortem photographer to gain access and assist groundskeeper Simeon Coyle in photographing the patients and uncovering the secrets within. However, she never expected her personal quest would reawaken...

"A record heat wave suffocates remote rural Wisconsin as the local sheriff tracks down a killer hidden in the depths of the community in this atmospheric, race-to-the-finish mystery"-- Sheriff Heidi Kick has a dead body on her hands: a homeless young man last seen alive miles from the Bad Axe. The medical examiner confirms what Sheriff Kick has been experiencing in her own reoccurring nightmares of late: the victim was buried alive. As the relentless...

"Fifteen years ago, Heidi White's parents were shot to death on their Bad Axe County farm. The police declared it a murder-suicide and closed the case. But that night, Heidi found the one clue she knew could lead to the truth--if only the investigators would listen. Now Heidi White is Heidi Kick, wife of local baseball legend Harley Kick and mother of three small children. She's also the interim sheriff in Bad Axe. Half the county wants Heidi elected...

"Pepin County is in the grip of an icy winter; twenty degrees below zero as the new year rolls in. Deputy Sheriff Claire Watkins is happy. She's been living with Rich Haggard, and as they sit together awaiting midnight, she feels ready to step into the marriage he's wanted all along. But not all marriages last. Car mogul Daniel Walker is celebrating New Year's Eve alone, roasting in his sauna with a bottle of Belvedere vodka by his side. His soon-to-be-ex-wife...

Breaking down while en route to Wisconsin, Grace MacBride, Annie Belinsky, and deputy Sharon Mueller stumble upon a nearly deserted town fraught with signs of foul play and are horrified to witness a double murder.

"An instant classic, for fans of Huckleberry Finn, Peace Like a River, and Jim the Boy: when two hardscrabble young boys think they've committed a crime, they flee into the Northwoods of Wisconsin. Will the adults trying to find and protect them reach them before it's too late?"-- Summer, 1994, Claypot, Wisconsin. Tired of seeing his best friend, Dale "Bread" Breadwin, bruised and terrorized by his no-good dad, ten-year-old Fischer "Fish" Branson...