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Overview
In the American heartland, someone is killing cops.The ambush exploded in an Iowa marijuana field. The weapons were high caliber. The pot was high grade. And the reporters said afterward: "We have two known dead...."
Deputy Sheriff Carl Houseman knew the dead all right: One was a small-time doper, the other a good cop. But Houseman doesn't know why they died, or who cut them down in a blaze of automatic rifle fire. Now, as the Feds descend on Nation County, Houseman and his fellow cops are suddenly walking point--searching for answers amidst the violence, treachery, and evil in their own backyard....
Donald Harstad's Eleven Days was called "a hell of a first novel" by Michael Connelly and "truly frightening" by the San Francisco Chronicle. In his electrifying new novel Harstad captures with nerve-shattering power an Iowa police department's harrowing search through a killing storm--to know the truth about the dead and the living alike....
Synopsis
Donald Harstad, a 26-year police veteran, has firsthand knowledge of small town police departments. This background enables him to create the authentic details, realistic dialogue, and suspenseful twists in Known Dead. Deputy Sheriff Carl Houseman is dozing in his cruiser near parklands in Nation County, Iowa when he hears popping sounds. Immediately, his radio screams to life with a call for assistance. What started as a simple raid on a marijuana patch has erupted into high-power gunfire. As the air clears, two men are known dead. But who was firing, and what else are they protecting? Houseman will find few heroes as he follows a convoluted trail that leads from the marijuana plants to an elusive international operator. By the time the case is closed, "known dead" has taken on a new meaning for him. Ron McLarty's dramatic narration highlights Houseman's increasingly ironic attitude toward life and his profession.
The New York Times - Richard Bernstein
...[An] entertaining mystery....[with] a complicated little conundrum of a plot that keeps...the reader guessing all the way through....Mr. Harstad's message seems to be that evil is too great for us ever to shed an all-clarifying light on its activities.....sophisticated, funny and diverting...
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
Former sheriff Donald Harstad delivers Known Dead, his second small-town crime yarn featuring Deputy Sheriff Carl Houseman. When a drug bust goes bad, Houseman finds himself in the middle of savage cross fire that has already claimed two lives. To make matters worse, he has no clue where the guns are pointed -- or who is pulling the triggers.Richard Bernstein
...[An] entertaining mystery....[with] a complicated little conundrum of a plot that keeps...the reader guessing all the way through....Mr. Harstad's message seems to be that evil is too great for us ever to shed an all-clarifying light on its activities.....sophisticated, funny and diverting...—The New York Times
Publishers Weekly
There's a solid core of experience and acquired wisdom in this second mystery (after the well-received Eleven Days) from Harstad, a 26-year veteran of the Clayton County Sheriff's Department in northeastern Iowa. There are also some shortcomings, most notably narrative padding and a tendency toward cuteness. Deputy Sheriff Carl Houseman is a sharp, likable 50-year-old Iowan with weight and blood-pressure problems (which get mentioned too often), and strong opinions on every aspect of policing--including a hatred for the special prayer called "The Lord Is My Shepherd, He Rides in My Patrol Car" that is recited at cop funerals. Readers first encounter the prayer at the services for an Iowa narcotics agent killed on Houseman's Nation County turf while staking out a marijuana patch in a state park. Blasts of gunfire from mysterious shooters take out the agent and a smalltime dealer. While various federal and state agencies wrestle for control of the case and Harstad overwhelms readers with reams of ballistic evidence, two more Nation County cops are shot down at the farm of a local extremist with links to a large militant group. Between seemingly endless sessions of drinking coffee--described sip-by-sip--and eating everything from doughnuts to fat-free wieners, Houseman tries to connect the shootings and keep some of the glory for his own office, even as the author provides welcome information on how surveillance helicopters can tell the good guys from the bad guys in the dark (the good guys wear little chemical badges that give off heat). Overall, the novel's a good one and Houseman's an appealing hero, but both book and cop carry excess fat. (July) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.Library Journal
Working as back-up in a routine drug bust, Nation County Deputy Sheriff Carl Houseman is first on the scene when a policeman is killed along with a man who was tending illegal marijuana plants. The guns used in the shooting are high-tech military weapons, and soon the place is swarming with federal agents. There are so few leads that all Houseman and his Iowa state counterpart, Hester Gorse, know is that the crime scene looked like a typical ambush scenario and that the shooters were wearing camouflage. Then the sheriff and a deputy go out to Herman Stritch's farm to serve a court order; another officer is killed, and the family barricades itself in the farmhouse, shooting at anything that moves. Dealing with the realities of middle America's militia groups and the interaction of local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies, Harstad has written a tightly woven police procedural even better than his first, Eleven Days (LJ 6/15/98). A natural storyteller, Harstad uses his experiences as a longtime deputy sheriff to make his novel come alive. This is a winner and should be in every fiction collection.--Jo Ann Vicarel, Cleveland Heights-University Heights P.L. Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.Marilyn Stasio
If Donald Harstad is trying to shoo the tourists away from Iowa, he's doing a good job of it....[He] punches all the paranoia buttons about right-wing militia outfits lurking in the cornfields.— The New York Times Book Review
Richard Bernstein
...[An] entertaining mystery....[with] a complicated little conundrum of a plot that keeps...the reader guessing all the way through....Mr. Harstad's message seems to be that evil is too great for us ever to shed an all-clarifying light on its activities.....sophisticated, funny and diverting...— The New York Times