Dark Of The Moon (Virgil Flowers, #1)

Virgil Flowers — tall, lean, late thirties, three times divorced, hair way too long for a cop — had kicked around a while before joining the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. Lucas Davenport at the BCA promised him, "We'll only give you the hard stuff." Flowers has been doing the hard stuff for three years now — but never anything like this.

In the small town of Bluestem, a house way up on a ridge explodes into flames, its owner, a man named Judd, trapped inside. There is a lot of reason to hate him, Flowers discovers. Years ago, Judd had perpetrated a scam that'd driven a lot of local farmers out of business, even to suicide. There are also rumors of some very dicey activities with other men's wives, of involvement with some nutcase religious guy, and of an out-of-wedlock daughter. In fact, you'd probably have to dig around to find a person who didn't despise him. ... more>>