David Wiltse Books In Order

John Becker Books In Publication Order

Prayer for the Dead (1991)
Close to the Bone (1992)
The Edge of Sleep (1993)
Into the Fire (1994)
Bone Deep (1995)
Blown Away (1996)

Billy Tree Books In Publication Order

Heartland (2001)
The Hangman’s Knot (2002)

Standalone Novels In Publication Order

The Wedding Guest (1982)
The Serpent (1984)
The Assassin (1984)
The Fifth Angel (1985)
Home Again (1986)

Standalone Plays In Publication Order

Suggs (1972)
Doubles (1986)
A Grand Romance. (1998)
Temporary Help (2000)
A Dance Lesson (2004)
A Marriage Minuet (2007)
Sedition (2008)
Crazy Horse and Three Stars (2010)
SCRAMBLE! (2010)

John Becker Book Covers

Billy Tree Book Covers

Standalone Novels Book Covers

Standalone Plays Book Covers

David Wiltse Books Overview

Prayer for the Dead

Approached by the police, former government hitman John Becker emerges from a self imposed retirement to hunt down the twisted killer who has been preying on innocent people. NYT. AB. PW.

FBI agent John Becker is back to face Roger Bahoud, a violent international assassin who has descended on New York for his latest victim, a visiting diplomat who holds the key to peace in the Middle East. By the author of ‘Home Again’, ‘The Serpent’ and ‘A Prayer for the Dead’.

The Edge of Sleep

John Becker teams up with a former prote a7ge a7 and lover, FBI agent Karen Crist, to find the serial killer or killers responsible for the deaths of little boys and finds himself in a race against time to save the life of Crist’s own young son. K. PW. AB.

Into the Fire

Mass Market Paperback, Berkley Publishing Corporation,U.S.

Bone Deep

A serial killer seduces teenagers and au pair girls in a quiet Connecticut suburb, murders them during sex, and separates them bone by bone, and FBI agent John Becker and Police Chief Terence ”Tee” Terhune must stop him.

Heartland

A fallen hero…
Billy Tree once protected the most powerful man in the world from harm. If the situation called for it, he would give his own life to save another’s. But after his partner dies at the hands of a raving would be assassin, a physically and spiritually broken Tree returns to his hometown of Falls City, Nebraska, to contemplate his own part in the fiasco.A tarnished beauty…
Joan Blanchard never made it out of Falls City. She stayed behind, locked in an unhappy marriage. But she never stopped thirsting for excitement. Now divorced with one child, her fast living has earned her the kind of reputation that women try to avoid in a small town. But there’s something in her, beyond her looks, that draws Tree to the melancholy high school teacher.A ruthless madman…
Duane Blanchard is a bully and a racist. But behind his insatiable anger lurks the keen intelligence and the uncompromising ferocity that made him the scourge of Falls City. He resents Tree’s presence and the attention Tree lavishes on his ex wife. He resents the town that considers him a monster. And he may be involved in one of me most deadly conspiracy the quiet community has ever witnessed.A small town cop…
Sheriff Pat Kunkel seems to be in over his head after a schoolyard shooting that leaves two people dead and the only suspect goes missing. But Billy Tree learned law enforcement at the affable old man’s knee, and Pat Kunkel may still have a few tricks up his sleeve…
A murdered derelict…
Huford Peck slept on the cold, hard floor of Falls City’s abandoned power plant, amidst the lifetime of discarded junk he collected. When his naked body turns up along the banks of the Missouri River, it seems the result of another senseless act of brutality. But what secrets did the mysterious vagabond hide?His mutilated corpse may hold the key to a deadly puzzle.A fifteen year old boy…
Will Blanchard seeks his father’s love. But when one’s father is incapable of love, is the next best thing a share in his hatred?Joan, the boy’s mother, hopes not. But as events explode out of control, Will may find himself involved in a terrifying drama. Six desperate individuals, cast into an abyss of intrigue and murder. To save a boy’s life and win a woman’s love, Billy Tree will need to unravel a conspiracy that he could scarcely have imagined possible in a town he once called home. But who can be trusted?And who knows what deadly hatreds seethe beneath the glimmering surface of America’s Heartland?AUTHORBIO: Born in Nebraska, David Wiltse has written 11 novels, including the spectacularly well received John Becker thriller series. He has been honored with an Edgar Allen Poe award for a television feature film, a Drama Desk Award as Most Promising Playwright, and has had two novels selected as Most Notable Books of the Year by the New York Times Book Review and by Time Out Magazine in London. He lives in Connecticut.

The Hangman’s Knot

It’s the hottest summer ever in Falls City, Nebraska. Acting deputy Billy Tree is struggling to readjust to his old hometown as well as recover from the shattering tragedy that ended his Secret Service career. But amid the shimmering heat, deserted barns, and burning plains, a horrifying, decades old injustice is about to rear its ugly head when a stranger with a vendetta arrives, hell bent on making Falls City pay for its sins…
It all begins for Billy when sinister miniature nooses arrive in his mail. And it soon escalates when deadly shots ring out in the night. Hot on the trail of a relentless killer, Billy discovers a viper’s nest of secrets and lies that turns everything he thought he knew about his own family and the woman he loves into terrifying doubt and renews the deep hatred that still festers beneath Falls City’s rural peace…