FROM AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR CHRIS OFFUTT.'Excellent Kentucky noir Offutt's third Mick Hardin novel is the best yet.' KirkusAn explosive return to the mayhem of the Kentucky hills, Code of the Hills is a harrowing novel of family of what we're willing to do to protect and avenge the ones we love.Mick Hardin is back in the hills of Kentucky. He'd planned to touch down briefly before heading to France, marking the end to his twenty-year Army career.In Rocksalt, his sister Linda the sheriff is investigating the murder of Pete Lowe, a sought-after mechanic at the local racetrack. After another body is found, Linda and her deputy Johnny Boy Tolliver wonder if the two murders are related.Linda steps into harm's way just as a third body turns up and Mick ends up being deputised again.The dark, gripping, and propulsive thriller of murder and secrets in Rocksalt, Kentucky where little is as it seems.'This is a marvellous series These have become must-reads for me and I enjoy every minute of the reading experience' Deadly Pleasures'Beautifully descriptive... Offutt's Mick Hardin novels are powerful books that feature characters with questionable ethics.' Library Journal'Righteous Kentucky noir... I gulped it down, relishing the burn' Ian Rankin on Shifty's Boys

Chris Offutt is the author of the short-story collections Kentucky Straight and Out of the Woods, the novels The Good Brother, Country Dark, The Killing Hills, Shifty's Boys and three memoirs. His work has appeared in Best American Short Stories and Best American Essays. He has written screenplays for Weeds, True Blood, and Treme, and has received fellowships from the Lannan and Guggenheim foundations.