Houseman and his pals are sincere men and women who work too hard, care about each other and often end up dying to keep the world in some kind of order. When he finds a dead man who has one hand chopped off and a maimed dog at a local farm, Houseman is pretty certain he's stumbled upon something less than routine. Not long after that gruesome discovery three other bodies, with various parts missing, are found lying throughout another rural farmhouse. That's nothing compared with what happens later. A sacrificial altar is found in the basement of a home and the boys and girls in the sheriff's department nonchalantly decide they have a real winner on their hands.
Nothing seems to faze the cops in Nation County.
Considering that lost cows and a robbery every other year are the normal crimes around the area, it's a wonder everyone doesn't drop dead with excitement when they simply get into the squad cars. The mystery of the Satan killers gets a bit muddled when one of the crime scenes is burned to the ground, Houseman's old high school pal admits she slept with one of the female victims and people start lying like dogs. Before the dust settles and the coffee cools there are more dead bodies, a few mistakes and a missing baby that is either dead or lost in the shuffle. Harstad sprinkles his story with dialogue that could be lifted right off the dispatcher's log. The conversations between the cops is marvelously realistic and the author is honest about how many crimes are often solved.