Strange Country

“Deborah Coates is a storyteller in the best sense of the word.” — Patricia Briggs, New York Times bestselling author

The third novel in a stunning “rural fantasy” series

After facing Death himself and banishing a reaper bent on the destruction of Sheriff's deputy Boyd Davies, Hallie had hoped things would finally settle down; that she and Boyd would find more time to spend together, that ghosts would stay in cemeteries where they belong.

But hopes are so easily dashed.

On a wintry night in mid-December, someone shoots and kills a woman with a high-powered rifle. Not long after, another of West Prairie City’s citizens is killed in exactly the same way, drawing the attention of federal investigators. But the connection between the victims is not easy to uncover....

Meanwhile, Hallie Michaels finds a note pinned to her front porch. “What do you fear most?” it asks, accompanied by a set of map coordinates. Over the next few days she receives an anonymous phone call, an unsigned letter left for her at the local ag supply, and finally a note stuck to her kitchen table with a carving knife, all asking the same question and with the same set of coordinates. The mysteries are piling up, and time is short...Will Hallie be able to get to the bottom of this, before the body count rises again?

“Twin Peaks meets Dean Koontz in this tale of a windswept northern prairie town beset by eerie events. Deborah Coates offers a pitch-perfect sense of place, an uncanny knack for dialogue, and a complex heroine who’s mad, sad, tenacious, and tough.” — Sharon Shinn, national bestselling author of Troubled Waters