The Killing Hills

LONGLISTED FOR THE CWA GOLD DAGGER

Mick Hardin, a combat veteran now working as an Army CID agent, is home on a leave that is almost done. His wife is about to give birth, but they aren’t getting along. His sister, newly risen to sheriff, has just landed her first murder case, and local politicians are pushing for city police or the FBI to take the case. Are they convinced she can’t handle it, or is there something else at work? She calls on Mick who, with his homicide investigation experience and familiarity with the terrain, is well-suited to staying under the radar. As he delves into the investigation, he dodges his commanding officer’s increasingly urgent calls while attempting to head off further murders. And he needs to talk to his wife.

The Killing Hills is a novel of betrayal – sexual, personal, within and between the clans that populate the hollers – and the way it so often shades into violence. Chris Offutt has delivered a dark, witty, and absolutely compelling novel of murder and honor, with an investigator-hero unlike any in fiction.

• ** LONGLISTED FOR THE CWA GOLD DAGGER **
• Selected as a Times And Sunday Times Thriller of the Year and an Irish Times Crime Book of the Year
• The launch of a brand new crime series featuring enigmatic CID agent Mick Hardin, with book 2 to follow in October 2022
• A literary master across genres, award-winning author Chris Offutt’s latest novel, The Killing Hills, is a compelling, propulsive thriller in which a suspicious death exposes the loyalties and rivalries of a deep-rooted and fiercely private community in the Kentucky backwoods
• Perfect for readers of Daniel Woodrell, Willy Vlautin, Michael Farris Smith, Joe Lansdale And James Sallis, and for fans of Mare of Easttown starring Kate Winslet
• Author awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, the Whiting Writers Award, Pushcart Prize and American Academy of Arts and Letters Fiction Award. In 2020, his novel Country Dark won the Prix de Beaune and the Prix Mystère de la Critique for Best Foreign Novel in France
• Published in the US by Grove Atlantic, with US audio by Dreamscape Media. French rights sold to Gallmeister, Italian rights to Minimum Fax, German rights to Tropen and Spanish rights to Sajalin Editores