Known Dead - Hardcover

‘Harstad’s books are terrific and really capture the atmosphere of small-town America, where the twentieth century almost seems to have slipped by unnoticed.’ Independent on Sunday

‘Harstad’s first-hand experience ensures his storytelling always rings true.’ Arena

‘The Big Thaw, set in the dead of winter in a Fargo-like mid-west, is American procedural writing at its best.’ Guardian

'My name is Carl Houseman. I'm a deputy sheriff in Nation County, Iowa. I'm also the department's senior investigator, and senior officer, to boot. I'd like to tell you about the killings we had in our county in the summer of '96, and the subsequent investigation that stood the whole state on its ear. This is my version of what happened. It's the right one.'

Deputy Sheriff Carl Houseman, laconic hero of the bestselling Eleven Days, returns to narrate another fast-paced, quirky, police procedural thriller in his own inimitable voice.

A routine surveillance of a marijuana patch in a state park suddenly erupts into a shoot-out, leaving a police officer and an old doper dead. As the search gets under way for the killers, an emergency call comes in from a nearby farm where shots have been fired and help is needed fast. As two armed suspects escape across the cornfields, a huge weapons cache is discovered and a hostage situation develops, Houseman finds himself up against a splinter group of right-wing extremists...and a rising number of the known dead.