Carl Houseman Books In Publication Order
- Eleven Days (1998)
- Known Dead (1999)
- The Big Thaw (2000)
- Code 61 (2002)
- The Heartland Experiment / A Long December (2003)
- November Rain (2009)
Standalone Novels In Publication Order
- Three Octobers (2005)
Carl Houseman Book Covers
Standalone Novels Book Covers
Donald Harstad Books Overview
Eleven Days
In a mesmerizing debut, cop turned author Donald Harstad uses real life events to paint a jarring picture of crime in America’s heartland where two stoplight towns no longer offer refuge from modern day brutality. Life in Maitland, Iowa, is usually predictable, even for a cop. But all that changes the day Deputy Sheriff Carl Houseman’s dispatcher receives the terrifying 911 call. The day cops find the mutilated bodies at a remote farmhouse. The first of Eleven Days Carl will never forget. As hotshot investigators fly in from New York, Carl and his fellow cops use old fashioned detective work to piece together clues. But to turn suspicions into suspects, Carl must search among his closest friends to find a killer who has shocked and bewildered cops who’d thought they’d seen it all. And before it’s over, Carl will be forced into an unrelenting spiral of chaos, coming face to face with evil he never dreamed could exist in Maitland…
or anywhere else.
Known Dead
With a singular voice, a spellbinding insider perspective on small town heartland crime solving, and a cast of characters straight out of a Coen brothers movie, Known Dead solidifies Donald Harstad’s growing reputation as the finest new voice in crime fiction. No one knows the underbelly of Nation County, Iowa, better than Deputy Sheriff Carl Houseman. But with thirteen hundred odd miles of hills and curves to negotiate in the county’s 750 square mile border, there’s only so much territory he can cover in an eight hour shift. Time pas*ses slowly riding alone, but when lives are measured in seconds and backup could be hours away, one false move can get a cop killed. In Known Dead, Carl hits the ground running when he hears the call sign ‘officer needs assistance.’ As the blistering summer sun beats down on him, Carl steps into the middle of a war zone in an isolated and densely wooded patch of land. With two Known Dead and sixty seven empty shell casings from any number of high powered weapons, Carl has no clue about why or where the guns are pointing. Sheriff Lamar Ridgeway and DCI agent Hester Gorse are on their way, but Carl knows he’s riding point; and for the life of him, he can’t separate the killers from the kill. Filled with deadpan humor and brilliant police procedural narrative, Known Dead could only have been written by a man who’s been in a heartland patrol car himself.
The Big Thaw
On the heels of the Anthony Award nominated Eleven Days and the critically acclaimed Known Dead, The Big Thaw is homegrown heartland thrills from Iowa’s own answer to Michael Connelly. Donald Harstad writes the way Iowans live, with no nonsense direction, an innate sense of right and wrong, and a dry Midwestern brand of humor. In today’s urban dominated thriller landscape, Harstad is working the rural crime beat to perfection. While battling a grueling thirty below zero Iowa January, Carl Houseman is baffled by a series of burglaries in the deserted backwoods farms of Nation County. The Iowa snowbirds have flown south, leaving their houses and valuables for the taking. The last thing Carl wants to do is leave the comfort of his toasty kitchen, stocked with a full pot of coffee and a plate full of low fat donuts. But when news of a high speed chase warbles out of his police scanner, he knows there is no one else to pick up the slack and join in the pursuit. Little does he know that the suspected cat burglar tearing up the back roads is not running from the police. He’s running from what he found at the seemingly abandoned farm of Cletus Borglan, Maitland’s answer to Bill Gates. Carl thinks he’s seen it all in his twenty odd year career as deputy sheriff of Nation County, but this time the bad guys are uncannily intelligent. For the men lying low at the Borglan compound have much bigger plans than penny ante robbery. They’re waiting for a break in the weather to pull off a masterful siege of Nation County’s biggest economic asset the Colonel Beauregard, a floating casino on the Mississippi River.
Code 61
With his dead on depictions of the rural crime beat in such critically acclaimed novels as Eleven Days, Known Dead, and The Big Thaw, Donald Harstad proved himself to be a master of the police procedural and a keen observer of the intrigues and eccentricities of the American heartland. In Code Sixty one, Harstad furthers his talents, bringing his offbeat, Fargoesque style to a gripping tale about modern day vampires. Investigating the apparent suicide of a colleague’s niece, Iowa Deputy Sheriff Carl Houseman uncovers a group that has transformed the dark fantasies of vampire legend into grisly reality: they ritualistically drink small amounts of one another s blood. As Houseman and his partner, Hester Gorse, are drawn deeper into this alternate, alien world, they come to the chilling conclusion that the dead young woman may have been the victim of a twenty first century Dracula. Their prime suspect, Dan Peal, is a sinister and commanding presence within the group, but without proof to substantiate such a heinous theory, the trail is in danger of running cold. When their suspicions are bolstered by the report of a card carrying vampire hunter who is also pursuing Peal, Houseman and Gorse suddenly find themselves scrambling to track the vampire before he kills again.A spellbinding journey into the dark recesses of the modern day heartland, Code Sixty one unfolds with relentless speed and precision. Veteran police officer and author Donald Harstad continues to craft his work from the fabric of personal experience and insider know how, cutting to the quick of well imagined fiction, rattling nerves along the way.
The Heartland Experiment / A Long December
A Long December:American crime fiction’s best kept secret as if Michael Connelly had spent twenty six years as a small town cop in Iowa has written his breakout book. Brief Description:The people of Nation County, Iowa a heartland town straight out of a Coen Brothers movie or a John Cougar Mellencamp song practice a unique brand of American stoicism. You betcha. And they rely upon their public servants to shield them from the horrors of the outside world. Carl Houseman, deputy sheriff of the 750 square mile county, dedicates his life to keeping his citizenry so secure that you can leave the door unlocked at home and walk his streets with a big hello and a smile to every stranger. On Houseman s watch, the mounting terrors of the new world order stay far away. But December 2001 could change all of that. Outsiders are everywhere. The meat plant is now kosher and there are more Jewish fellows per capita than any other place in the country. Hispanic and other foreign workers, with dubious immigration papers, have taken jobs from the locals. Eighteen other languages are now spoken within the tiny region, and Carl and company can t speak a single one. Then the eighty odd year old Heinman brothers call comes in from their farm down in Frog Hollow. They ve witnessed an execution style killing not one hundred yards from their pig feeders. The victim s awful dead and half his head s been blown off. The boys haven t seen nothing like it since Normandy. When Carl gets to the scene, he believes them. What follows is a masterful police procedural thriller think Joe Wambaugh crossed with Fargo written with a singular and authentic voice that has electrified readers around the world.
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