Coffee is life...

But with her tap water suddenly cut off, Sheriff Karen Okerlund Mehaffey has to go cold turkey—and increasingly thirsty—after a body is found floating in Lake Meer early on a lazy summer morning.

As the boiling hot Dakota sun rises over the lake, Karen and her detective-uncle Marek Okerlund are greeted by a full-scale massacre...of fish. Setting that environmental mystery aside, they reluctantly determine the man in the lake wasn't likely the victim of an accidental drowning. But just what the cause of death was baffles the medical examiner.

The superintendent of Reunion's water department, Evert Vann had plenty of enemies both at home and at work. That includes a simmering feud with his rural neighbors, who banded together to restore the polluted lake—and include an unexpected family connection to Karen. And if that wasn't enough, Vann had lured a trio of corporate sharks to Reunion with his ambitious and controversial plans to bargain away city water to private interests.

As a potentially devastating storm looms on the horizon, Karen and Marek wade hip deep into a case filled with murky secrets and slippery suspects. In the process, they discover just how important water is to life—and death.

DEAD WATER is a character-driven police procedural. Fifteenth in series. Word Count: 77,000. Occasional profanity. Minimal gore.