"Intense...Galligan smoothly balances multiple story lines...readers will hope this is the start of a series." --Publishers Weekly
"Striking prose, engaging characters, and a searing story of crimes rooted in the heartland...a darkly irresistible thriller." --Kirkus (starred review)
"Gritty, brash, and totally gripping. John Galligan is a hell of a writer." --The Real Book Spy
"If Joseph Conrad had really wanted to find the heart of darkness, he'd have looked in Bad Axe County. Lurking in the isolated coulees at the edge of the Mississippi River are some of the meanest, foulest, cruelest hearts imaginable, and John Galligan evokes them with all the intensity of a mad poet. But in county sheriff Heidi Kick, a woman chipped and broken on every edge, Galligan offers a righteous force in opposition...A dark beauty of a novel." --William Kent Krueger, New York Times Bestselling author of Desolation Mountain
"Fast-paced and utterly addictive. I loved Heidi kick, the Dairy-Queen-turned-sheriff. Long may she reign."--Lori Rader-Day, Edgar-Award-nominated author of Under a Dark Sky
"An exceptional novel...Kick is a remarkable character and this is a bad-axe book." --Milwaukee Journal Sentinel