She's seen her times and her town change forever, and when murder destroys the peace, she knows that nothing can be the way it once was. "Absolutely stunning... Reads with the force and generational sweep of some ancient rural myth." -New York Times Book Review In this old-fashioned tale of murder and retribution we meet a strong-minded woman who has always feared for her family and tried to protect her father and her two sons. Annie D. was raised in Nebraska, all flat farmland and cornfields, except its rivers. Widowed and living in the town of Wizen River, she tends to her beloved garden and enjoys frequent visits from her old high school friend, Phoebe Tooker. Then one fine morning Phoebe drives her Chevy off the road, into a ditch, and up an oak tree, and Annie D. is forced to take stock. Life in Wizen River appears to be idyllic. But we soon learn that the idyll has been disrupted by two violent killings, and when a third young woman is found strangled and raped, we trust to Annie D., with her sharp tongue and good heart, to make sense of it all. A Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award Nominee