Elizabeth Buzzelli

Even the beauty of Northern Michigan can’t put a smile on the face of Emily Kincaid’s perpetually cranky friend Deputy Dolly Wakowski, and when someone tries to destroy the only family Dolly has ever had, her crankiness turns lethal, even as the crime threatens to overwhelm her.

Escaping the city, and her coed-chasing ex-husband, part-time journalist and full-time failed mystery writer Emily Kincaid has moved into a cozy cabin nestled in the woods of northern Michigan. Emily spends her days writing for the local newspaper and crafting her latest forgettable novel.

Springtime in northern Michigan: a picture-perfect scene. Until struggling mystery writer Emily Kincaid gets a visit from her foul-weather friend Deputy Dolly, who frantically demands Emily's help. Sandy Lake's receding waters have revealed a bullet-pierced skull, along with a keepsake that could mean serious trouble for a man Dolly once loved.

While an end-of-the-world revivalist group shakes up Leetsville, Emily Kincaid is deep in the northern Michigan woods researching her latest story for the local paper. But her walk gets cut short when she comes upon an eerily motionless woman propped against a tree . . .

Something nasty is afoot in Emily Kincaid's northern Michigan town—besides Emily's increasingly cranky friend Deputy Dolly. When the body of a brutally slain woman turns up in an abandoned farmhouse, Emily and Dolly uncover a disturbing pattern.