Akron Public Library

"In southeast Minnesota, down on the Mississippi, a school board meeting is coming to a close. The board chairman announces that the rest of the meeting will be closed, due to personnel issues. "Issues" is correct. The proposal up for a vote before them is whether a local reporter should die. And the vote is four to one in favor. Meanwhile, not far away, Virgil Flowers is doing a favor for a friend by looking into a dognapping, which seems to be turning...

"The first storm comes from, of all places, the Minnesota zoo. Two large, and very rare, Amur tigers have vanished from their cage, and authorities are worried sick that they've been stolen for their body parts. Traditional Chinese medicine prizes those parts for home remedies, and people will do extreme things to get what they need. Some of them are a great deal more extreme than others -- as Virgil is about to find out. Then there's the homefront....

Pinion, Minnesota: a huge city of all of seven hundred folks who define the phrase 'small town'. Nothing has ever happened in Pinion and nothing ever will ... until the mayor of sorts (campaign promise: "I'll Do What I Can") comes up with a scheme to put Pinion on the map. He's heard of a place where a floating image of the Virgin Mary turned the whole town into a shrine, attracting thousands of curious people and making the townsfolk rich overnight....

The superstore chain PyeMart has its sights set on a Minnesota river town, but two very angry groups want to stop it - local merchants fearing for their businesses and the environmentalists predicting ecological disaster. The protests don't seem to be slowing the project down, though, until someone decides to take matters into his own hands. The first bomb goes off on the top floor of PyeMart's headquarters. The second one explodes at the construction...

Virgil Flowers is only in his late 30s, but he's been around the block a few times, and he doesn't think much can surprise him. He's about to be proved wrong. On a hot, humid summer night in Minnesota, Flowers is in bed with one of his ex-wives when the phone rings. It's Lucas Davenport. There's a body near a veteran's memorial in Stillwater with two shots to the head. The victim has a lemon in his mouth, exactly like the body they found a week ago....

Approached by an Israeli police officer who is tailing a man in possession of a stolen religious relic, Virgil Flowers learns that the artifact reveals startling details about the biblical King Solomon and that dangerous rivals are killing everyone who would protect it.

Virgil Flowers joins the growing army of cops trying to run down three teenagers with dead-end lives who are on a crime spree in Minnesota and who think they are just like Bonnie and Clyde, and their sidekick.