Known Dead

by Donald Harstad

Published 20 July 1999
The second fast paced quirky police procedural thriller by former deputy sheriff Don Harstad, following the success of Eleven Days. This time Deputy Sheriff Carl Houseman is on the trail of the leader of a splinter group of US extreme right-wing terrorists causing mayhem in Nation County, Iowa. A routine surveillance of a marijuana patch in a state park in Nation County, Iowa suddenly turns into a shoot-out resulting in one police officer and one old doper dead. As Deputy Sheriff Houseman embarks on a search for the killers, a 911 emergency call comes in from the Stritch farm where shots have been fired and help is needed fast. A hostage situation develops as Stritch and his family are holed up on their farm. When they are finally forced out at gunpoint, two suspects, both armed, have escaped across the cornfields and at the farm a huge weapons cache is discovered. One of the men is known as Gabe and suddenly Carl Houseman, FBI agent Hester Gorse, and all the highly individual characters that made Eleven Days so entertaining, find themselves on the trail of a splinter group of right wing extremists whose training exercise was disturbed by a routine marijuana surveillance.

The Big Thaw

by Donald Harstad

Published 3 August 2000
What initally looks like a small time midwinter break-in, leads to something much bigger -- a million dollar siege of a floating casino on the frozen Mississippi River. But the temperature is rising and the heat is on Deputy Sheriff Carl Houseman...It is 30 below zero in the heartland of Iowa. the Mississippi river is frozen solid and with it, the Colonel Beauregard - a floating casino. Carl Houseman comes upon Fred, a petty crook, one night. A few break-ins have been reported and Fred confesses that he's involved. But now he's worried: he dropped his cousins off to rob the house a few days ago and they never came out ...There are few clues to reveal what happened but Carl realises more than murder is at stake. Soon he and his partner Hester Gorse are fighting for their lives as a million-dollar seige of the casino is threatened.