The Errand Boy — Don Bredes

Every small town has its secrets.

Onetime Boston homicide detective Hector Bellevance is married now and settled on the family farm with his pregnant wife, Wilma, and their strong-willed eleven-year-old daughter, Myra, happily spending his days raising vegetables for the farmers' market and serving, when needed, as the town's constable.

But Hector's fair-weather days suddenly darken when a reckless driver leaves Wilma in a coma, and later, after the unrepentant driver turns up brutally murdered, Hector finds himself a natural suspect in the homicide. When the victim's father offers to pay Wilma's medical bills if Hector will find his son's killer, Hector takes the case -- more out of compassion than a desire to clear his own name.

Yet the murder quickly proves more vexing and the motives more twisted than even a town constable could have foreseen. Hector discovers an unsavory secret behind every door, and he is soon caught in a web of sex offenders, backwoods meth addicts, undercover federal agents, Hells Angels, and an international drug cartel.

Just when he's ready to abandon his sputtering investigation -- as the police have angrily demanded -- Myra disappears from the hospital while visiting her mother, and Hector knows he cannot rest until he has found her. Everything he loves and lives for is at stake.