Seventeen years after the discovery of a female murder victim near Small Plains, Kansas, the girl's grave has become the source of strange miracles and legends, until the return of prodigal son Mitch Newquist threatens to bring old secrets to light.

"Many changes have happened to the Murder Squad. Rash actions have cost Sergeant Nevil Hammersmith his job, and in response he has set up his own private detective agency. Inspector Walter Day has been missing for a year, and no one knows where he is--though there is a strong suspicion that Saucy Jack has him. Hammersmith has made finding Day his primary case, and he has company--a pair of bounty hunters, a man and a woman. It is only gradually that...

One beautiful summer afternoon, from her bedroom window on the second floor, Jody Linder is unnerved to see her three uncles parking their pickups in front of her parents' house. "What is this fearsome thing I see?" the young high school English teacher whispers, mimicking Shakespeare. Polished boots, pressed jeans, fresh white shirts, Stetsons- her uncles' suspiciously clean visiting clothes are a disturbing sign. The three bring shocking news: Billy...

Celia Scott and her family move back to her husband's hometown in Kansas, where his sister died under mysterious circumstances twenty years before, and where Celia and two of her children struggle to adjust--especially when a local girl disappears.