The Known Dead - Softcover

Donald Harstad was an Iowa deputy sheriff for 26 years, and only retired so that he could pursue his passion for writing. His first book was a well-received police mystery, Eleven Days. The same solid foundation of experience anchors Harstad's second mystery about Iowa deputy sheriff Carl Houseman, a sharp and likable 50-year-old with weight and blood pressure problems and strong opinions on every aspect of policing.

Known Dead begins with the murder of a state narcotics agent killed on Houseman's Nation County turf while staking out a marijuana patch. Blasts of gunfire from a band of mysterious shooters take out the agent and one local smalltime dealer. Then, while various federal and state agencies wrestle for control of the case, two more Nation County cops are shot down at the farm of a local extremist with links to a large militant group. As the resourceful Houseman tries to connect the shootings and keep some of the investigation in his own office, we learn all sorts of information about guns, bullets, trajectories, stakeouts, interagency rivalries, and the eating habits of cops of all kinds--taken no doubt from the author's lively memory and imagination. --Dick Adler

With a singular voice, a spellbinding insider perspective on small-town heartland crime-solving, and a cast of characters straight out of a Coen brothers movie, Known Dead solidifies Donald Harstad's growing reputation as the finest new voice in crime fiction.

No one knows the underbelly of Nation County, Iowa, better than Deputy Sheriff Carl Houseman. But with thirteen hundred-odd miles of hills and curves to negotiate in the county's 750-square-mile border, there's only so much territory he can cover in an eight-hour shift. Time passes slowly riding alone, but when lives are measured in seconds and backup could be hours away, one false move can get a cop killed.

In Known Dead, Carl hits the ground running when he hears the call sign "officer needs assistance." As the blistering summer sun beats down on him, Carl steps into the middle of a war zone in an isolated and densely wooded patch of land. With two known dead and sixty-seven empty shell casings from any number of high-powered weapons, Carl has no clue about why or where the guns are pointing. Sheriff Lamar Ridgeway and DCI agent Hester Gorse are on their way, but Carl knows he's riding point; and for the life of him, he can't separate the killers from the kill.

Filled with deadpan humor and brilliant police procedural narrative, Known Dead could only have been written by a man who's been in a heartland patrol car himself.