Mad Dog & Englishman

As spring bursts forth, so does a whole lot more, including murder by arrow, in quiet Benteen County, Kansas. Nothing ever happens here. Then, on a perfect spring morning, a member of the TV crew filming in the area dies with a Cheyenne arrow in his back. A prime suspect is Sheriff English's brother, Mad Dog, the county oddball whose American Indian heritage has produced a born-again Cheyenne. While murder is a bad way to start the day, bombs don't improve it. Notes left for authorities hint at a terrorist assault on the heartland. As if the sheriff, known as Englishman, doesn't have enough to worry about, his wife has begun acting strangely. She insists he fly off for a Paris holiday with her before sunset-or else. As Mad Dog swings between suspect and target, he encounters not only his long-lost high school sweetheart but also a secret that just may explain the unlikely mix of arrows and bombs. It's Murphy's Law squared, as Mad Dog and his pet wolf, Hailey, test a shaman's powers and Englishman struggles to balance his duties to family and community. It's enough to drive anyone crazy.

Sleepy Benteen County, Kansas, turns frantic on election day. The religious right is out to unseat Sheriff English, whose deputy rams a school bus carrying the teen choir. A student smuggles a gun into the school and begins shooting. It's enough to make a sheriff wonder why he wants to serve another term.

Attending the Yaqui tribe's Easter Ceremonies in Tucson should be a dream come true for a Cheyenne-wannabe-shaman like Mad Dog. But immediately after his arrival, he is accused of being a witch. Moments later a policeman is murdered, and suddenly Mad Dog is the target of a city-wide manhunt. Mad Dog's niece, Heather English, comes to Tucson to try to arrange a peaceful surrender or clear her uncle by finding the real killer. Back in Kansas, someone has blown Mad Dog's house off the face of the Great Plains. Sheriff English, investigating that crime, learns Mad Dog has been playing a massive online game: War of Worldcraft. There, a vampire wizard has been tormenting him, and Mad Dog claims the creature has reached out of the game to come after him in the real world. The sheriff isn't convinced...until he begins receiving threats from a vampire wizard on his office computer.

On a bleak Christmas morning, Sewa Tribal Police Officer Heather English patrols a desolate canyon on the Arizona reservation. Back in Kansas, her father, the sheriff of Benteen County, is lonely enough with no family around to go in to work at his office. On the way, Sheriff English calms a wild incident in a church parking lot. Then he hears of a death threat. The crèche, at the center of the town's largest holiday yard display, has been desecrated, and its owner plans to kill the neighbors he suspects are responsible. To keep their husband and father home, his family gives the sheriff the man's guns and promises not to let him make trouble. Soon the county fills with rumors that the sheriff is systematically violating Second Amendment rights and seizing every weapon. A local militia turns out, locked and loaded and ready to do whatever it takes to stop him. Meanwhile, in Arizona, Heather stumbles on the newly elected governor, newly murdered. A note explains that his death is part of a drug war, and his killer promises Heather that she will be among the victims. Her Uncle Mad Dog, a Cheyenne wannabe shaman, is involved. Someone thinks Mad Dog is a drug lord and sends him a last minute gift—a severed human hand. Careful police work, a little Cheyenne magic, and maybe a Christmas miracle are needed to restore peace on earth. One slip, however, will mean that Mad Dog, Sheriff English, and Heather will rest in peace—eternally. A Poisoned Pen Press Mystery