Sheriff Milt Kovak

The tenth Milt Kovak mystery from this best-selling author . . . - Strange things are happening in Prophesy County. First, Deputy Dalton Pettigrew disappears on a mysterious date in Tulsa. His sister goes to rescue him, only to disappear herself. She'd left her middle child, Eli, in the care of Jean, the sheriff's wife, but now he's missing too. Who is the mysterious Dr. Emil Hawthorne, and why is he out to get Jean? Can Milt Kovak find Eli before it's too late?

Arresting a Blanton was always going to be bad news, but things are about to get even worse for Sheriff Milt Kovak. Everyone in Prophesy County knows that you don't mess with the dim-witted, in-bred Blantons. So when Milt gets a call to say that Darrell Blanton has shot dead his wife, he's expecting a rough ride. Arresting Darrell and putting him in the slammer may have been surprisingly easy, but things are about to get a whole lot worse. Eunice Blanton, Darrell's mama, takes a dim view of her son's arrest and decides to storm the Longbranch Inn where Milt's partner, Jean McDonnell is hosting a bachelorette party for Holly Humphries. With the women taken hostage, Eunice's terms are – unsurprisingly – simple: release her boy or a hostage gets shot every ten minutes. But there's a problem: Darrell has been found dead in his cell, with not a mark on him . . .

Sheriff Milt Kovak and his team must track down a determined killer hell-bent on revenge against them and their families. Someone is out to get revenge against Milt Kovak, sheriff of Prophesy County, Oklahoma, and his team with a series of pranks. First a sinister note is found taped to the office front door. Then the alarm system is tampered with and a dummy found hanging from a light fitting in the interrogation room. If that wasn't disturbing enough, things start to escalate when the brake lines on Milt's deputy Anthony's car are cut, causing his wife Maryanne to crash. Meanwhile, two friends of Inez Pettigrew, mother of Milt's other deputy, Dalton, are taken to hospital with arsenic poisoning after eating her peach melba. It's not long before Milt and his team have a murder investigation on their hands. And if Milt doesn't find the killer soon, his own nearest and dearest could be next in line . . .