Description
Book SynopsisEleven Days is a wry and gripping police thriller. Written by a former deputy sheriff on his vacation, the story covers the solving of a horrific satanic cult murder in farmland Iowa in just – eleven days.
The first Deputy Sheriff Carl Houseman knows of the murder case that will take over his life for the next eleven days is when a call comes into his Nation County police department from an unidentified source, believed female, possibly under fifty. No call back number. "Help us," she says, "they’re killing everybody!" Spread over two remote farms amidst the cornfields of Iowa, Carl eventually finds four bodies – one man with his hand chopped off – but no sign of the female caller. Another body is on his back, legs secured to the bed wtih black cord. He’s been castrated and black wax poured into into eyes. His tongue is missing and there’s a substance around his mouth which looks like dried super glue. Female FBI Special Agent Hester Gorse comments: "You don’t suppose they tried to glue his tongue back on, do you?" Along with Hester, a dyslexic investigator called Theo, a sassy radio dispatcher called Sally, his long-suffering schoolteacher wife and numerous Iowa cops who may never have encountered a murder in their lives, Carl somehow manages to collar the perpetrator of these horrific murders in just Eleven Days.
Trade ReviewPRAISE FOR ELEVEN DAYS: "The kind of book that you start and finish in one late-night sitting." Sunday Express "A major achievement from an ex-cop; a novel that feels and smells right." Time Out "A hell of a novel, gripping and unsettling." Michael Connelly "Donald Harstad constructs a finely judged atmosphere of menace. Expertly written by a man who himself served as a law enforcement officer in Iowa, Eleven Days builds up suspense and holds it right through to the end." Irish Times "Undeniably gripping, and the contrast throughout between the trivia of existence and extreme and bloody violence is extraordinary effective." Evening Standard "Strong, salty narrative given extra muscle by sense of actuality and refusal to punch up the horrors." Literary Review "Like Patricia Cornwall, ex-cop turned novelist Donald Harstad's main claim to fame is that he knows what a pair of testicles look like when whizzed up in the blender." Independent
