
Bad Axe County
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Samantha Desz
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By:
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John Galligan
Dennis Lehane meets Megan Miranda in this tense, atmospheric thriller about the first female sheriff in rural Bad Axe County, Wisconsin, as she searches for a missing girl, battles local drug dealers, and seeks the truth about the death of her parents 20 years ago - all as a winter storm rages in her embattled community.
Fifteen years ago, Heidi White’s parents were shot to death on their Bad Axe County farm. The police declared it a murder-suicide and closed the case. But that night, Heidi found the one clue she knew could lead to the truth - if only the investigators would listen.
Now, Heidi White is Heidi Kick, wife of local baseball legend Harley Kick and mother of three small children. She’s also the interim sheriff in Bad Axe. Half the county wants Heidi elected, but the other half will do anything to keep her out of law enforcement. Aas a deadly ice storm makes it way to Bad Axe, tensions rise and long-buried secrets climb to the surface.
As freezing rain washes out roads and rivers flood their banks, Heidi finds herself on the trail of a missing teenaged girl. Clues lead her down twisted paths to backwoods stag parties, derelict dairy farms, and the local salvage yard - where the body of a different teenage girl has been carefully hidden for a decade.
As the storm rages on, Heidi realizes that someone is planting clues for her to find, leading her to some unpleasant truths that point to the local baseball team and a legendary game her husband pitched years ago. With a murder to solve, a missing girl to save, and a monster to bring to justice, Heidi is on the cusp of shaking her community to its core - and finding out what really happened the night her parents died.
©2019 John Galligan (P)2019 Simon & Schuster AudioListeners also enjoyed...




















The narrator just pulls you into the horrible reality of it.
So believable!
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Good but won't invest time in future series
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Wowsa
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A Great Listen
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Bad Axe County is a fictional county in the Driftless Area of SW Wisconsin. The protagonist is the acting sheriff of the county and the former Dairy Queen of Wisconsin, whose parents were murdered a decade before this book.
That murder is something of a background plot that runs through the entire book. The foreground plot(s) are harder to articulate. There is corruption, murder, theft, and slavery, all mixed about with no real throughline. This is a reasonable reflection of real life, but not exactly a coherent narrative.
The characters are drawn memorably, and are all flawed. But I don't quite believe in the protagonist. There's just too much tension in strange ways at the core of her personality. There are elements of her portrayal that are sympathetic, but there are elements of completely out-of-control rage that don't seem consistent with her life as a deputy, wife, and mother.
There are definitely elements to like in this book: its portrait of rural criminality rings true and the story flows well. If you're looking for a very dark police procedural with rampant violence, this might be a good choice. But reading the next book in the series won't be a priority for me.
Good elements, but often disjointed
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Small Town Mystery
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very good
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Small Town Crime
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However, the author soon degraded into details about rape and sexual torture until I realized I was reading pornography.
This book is not a mystery. It is not about the first woman sheriff in a male culture. It is about sex trafficking of minors and provides details of torture and sexual brutality that would give ideas to those interested in proceeding.
Too graphic in details of sexual torture
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