Heartland
(Book)

"Billy Tree once protected the most powerful man in the world. If the situation called for it, he would have given his own life to save another's. But after his partner dies at the hands of a potential presidential assassin, a physically and spiritually broken Tree returns to his hometown of Falls City, Nebraska, to contemplate his own part in the fiasco." "Joan Blanchard never made it out of Falls City. She stayed behind, locked in an unhappy marriage. But she never stopped thirsting for excitement. Now she's divorced with one child, and her fast living has earned her the kind of reputation that women try to avoid in a small town. But there's something to her, beyond her looks, that draws Tree to the melancholy high school teacher." "Duane Blanchard is a bully and a racist. But behind his anger lurks a keen intelligence and the uncompromising ferocity that made him the scourge of Falls City. He resents Tree's presence and the attention Tree lavishes on his ex-wife. He resents the town that considers him a monster. And he may be involved in the most deadly conspiracy the quiet community has ever witnessed." "Sheriff Pat Kunkel seems to be in over his head after a schoolyard shooting that leaves two people dead and the only suspect missing. But Billy Tree learned law enforcement at the affable old man's knee, and Kunkel may still have a few tricks up his sleeve." "Huford Peck slept on the cold, hard floor of Falls City's abandoned power plant, amidst the discarded junk collected over a lifetime. When his naked body turns up along the banks of the Missouri River, it seems the result of another senseless act of brutality. But what secrets did the mysterious vagabond hide? His mutilated corpse may hold the key to a deadly puzzle." "Will Blanchard seeks his father's love. But when one's father is incapable of love, is the next best thing a share in his hatred? Joan, the boy's mother, hopes not. But as events explode out of control, Will finds himself involved in a terrifying drama." "Six desperate individuals, cast into an abyss of intrigue. To save a boy's life and win a woman's love, Billy Tree will need to unravel a conspiracy that he could scarcely have imagined possible in a town he once called home. But who can be trusted? And who knows what deadly hatreds seethe beneath the glimmering surface of America's heartland?"--BOOK JACKET.