The Big Thaw - Tapa dura

Deputy Sheriff Carl Houseman and his investigative partner, Hester Gorse, unearth a plot to rob the Colonel Beauregard riverboat casino, in a new thriller by the author of Known Dead..

of the Anthony Award--nominated Eleven Days and the critically acclaimed Known Dead, The Big Thaw is homegrown heartland thrills from Iowa's own answer to Michael Connelly.

Donald Harstad writes the way Iowans live, with no-nonsense direction, an innate sense of right and wrong, and a dry Midwestern brand of humor. In today's urban-dominated thriller landscape, Harstad is working the rural crime beat to perfection.

While battling a grueling thirty-below-zero Iowa January, Carl Houseman is baffled by a series of burglaries in the deserted backwoods farms of Nation County. The Iowa snowbirds have flown south, leaving their houses and valuables for the taking. The last thing Carl wants to do is leave the comfort of his toasty kitchen, stocked with a full pot of coffee and a plate full of low-fat donuts. But when news of a high-speed chase warbles out of his police scanner, he knows there is no one else to pick up the slack and join in the