Eleven Days by
Donald Harstad
pbk out July 98
(4th Estate)
at £9.99
The American crime novel has traditionally taken the big cities as its
stamping ground for murder and mayhem. As readers, we know that if we walk
the streets of Los Angeles, Miami and New York, we take our lives in our
hands. But out in the Midwest farmlands, a different kind of America
exists. Or so I thought until I read Donald Harstad's unsettling and
gruesome debut novel.
It opens with a frantic phone call from an unidentified woman calling from
an unknown location. When Deputy Sheriff Carl Houseman investigates, he
finds four tortured and slaughtered bodies in two separate farmhouses.
Before long, this sleepy Iowa community is up to its neck in horrific
satanic cult murder.
What makes this novel stand out from the crowd is its sense of absolute
authenticity -- not surprising, since its author was for 22 years an Iowa
Deputy Sheriff. The tensions in this investigation come as much from the
budgetary and personal limitations of the staff as they do from the crime,
and we gradually understand how it is possible that killers slip through
the net.
But this is no pedestrian procedural account, nor is it an apologia for the
police. It has wit and edge, pace and insight. For anyone who wants to
understand America outside the big cities, this is a great companion book
to Bill Bryson.
(
Val McDermid
- Gold Dagger winner & creator of Lindsay Gordon, Kate Brannigan & Tony Hill)
Eleven Days by
Donald Harstad