The Mick Hardin Novels

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 it over. 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.

Mick Hardin is back in the hills of Kentucky. He’d planned to touch down briefly before heading to France, marking the end to his twenty-year Army career. In Rocksalt, his sister Linda the sheriff is investigating the murder of Pete Lowe, a sought-after mechanic at the local racetrack. After another body is found, Linda and her deputy Johnny Boy Tolliver wonder if the two murders are related. Linda steps into harm’s way just as a third body turns up and Mick ends up being deputized again, uncovering evidence of illegal cockfighting, and trying to connect all the crimes.

Mick Hardin returns to the trials and tribulations of local sheriff duties, whilst the previous sheriff, his sister Linda, recovers from a gunshot wound sustained in the line of duty. Living in Linda's house in Rocksalt, Mick finds himself entwined in the trials and tribulations of being a sheriff in the perturbing Kentucky community. Unable to retire from a world of dubiousness and violence, Mick Hardin is back with determination to deliver retribution.

Master storyteller Chris Offutt’s acclaimed crime series has been praised by Ian Rankin as “righteous Kentucky noir with top notes of Daniel Woodrell and S. A. Cosby,” and in this breakneck new novel, sheriff Mick Hardin navigates the treacherous terrain of a town’s festering secrets and...