KING HARVEST, Book 1 (Range County, KS, summer/fall 1975): A group of young men known as “The Boys” make their stab for freedom harvesting marijuana on the Kansas plains. But the brutal murder of a young couple on the border of two counties threatens to sweep “The Boys” into a bigger world of crime.
BANKS OF THE RIVER, Book 2 (Cibola City, KS, summer 1960): “Lion” Jack, a small-town stone mason and rowdy womanizer, stands accused of murdering the man who has impregnated his 15-year-old daughter. Yet he claims he didn’t do it. The whole town witnesses the subsequent trial and surprising conclusion.
SKIN FOR SKIN, Book 3 (Elim, KS, autumn 1934): In the grip of hard times a robbery at a rural poker game leads to a murder disguised as an accident, and is so judged by a coroner’s inquiry. At the victim’s grave his older brother vows vengeance and acts thereon to the very end.
These stories are set in the valleys and rolling pastures of the High Plains, a region that has borne the brunt of drought and many changes, evident in abandoned farms and dying towns. Yet a stubborn will persists, rooting to claim its own. Commonly termed “Flyover Country,” in The Kansas Murder Trilogy the reader will discover a human mix as rich and baffling as in any other time or place.