The New York Times bestselling author Steve Thayer introduces Deputy P. A. Pennington of the Kickapoo Falls, Wisconsin, Sheriff's Department, in a gripping novel of sex, politics, and betrayal—where the lust for power leads a war-wounded young man through the explosive secrets of a small town in the presidential election year of 1960.Michael and Maggie Butler are found naked and dead in a Wisconsin wheat field, murdered by two vicious shotgun blasts. But no one gets murder...

John Eric Severson is a veteran of the First World War, a Marine Corps captain who once got lost in a forest behind enemy lines and unknowingly led his men into a leper colony. Now, five years later, he is an idealistic schoolteacher in a tough, working-class neighborhood where earning a high school diploma is something most of his students can only dream about. Severson vows to educate every one of them. But he quickly learns there is one student the tall, handsome Swede cannot control. T...