Below Zero (A Joe Pickett Novel)

“Tell Sherry April called.” That simple phone message shakes Joe Pickett’s oldest daughter, Sheridan, and the rest of the family to the core. To Joe, it doesn’t seem even remotely possible that April could have survived the massacre, described in Winterkill, six years before. He was there, and he was unable to save her. But Sheridan starts to believe there’s a chance that April is still alive, and her suspicions are confirmed when the person sending texts to her cell phone is able to recall family incidents only April could know. Meanwhile, a dying Chicago mobster named Stenko and a much younger girl cross the country. He’s on a mission to reconcile with his extreme environmentalist son before he goes. His son wants Stenko to repent for the environmental crimes he’s committed during his lifetime, by not just becoming carbon neutral, but reducing his carbon footprint to below zero – as if he’d never even existed. But when “April’s” texts start to refer to “bad things,” and when Joe discovers they come from locations throughout the West where vicious murders have taken place, alarm bells go off. Joe, Sheridan, and Nate Romanowski take to the road to connect the texts with the crimes. As Stenko and his companions start to cross paths with Joe, Sheridan, and Nate, the question looms: Is this girl April, or is the Pickett family the victim of the cruelest of hoaxes?