“Yellowstone” Collides With Russian Mob In Montana-Based Mystery

Land Grab by Kit Karson

A murder mystery that’s too exhilarating to be described merely as cozy, but not so dark that it’ll leave you afraid to turn the lights off.

Cradled by the majestic mountains of Stone County, Montana, Anderson is by all accounts a sleepy ranch town. Boasting a number of old mining buildings, a sapphire digging pit for visitors and a delicious local bakery, the town is a source of pride for its close-knit residents. And besides drunken tourists, cows wandering into the road, and a few petty disputes, it isn’t really the place you’d turn to for a grisly murder.

All that changes, however, when town sheriff Peter Marshall wakes at 5 o’clock in the morning to a chilling message: “They need you down at the bakery ASAP. We’ve got a body.”

Then one body becomes two. Add in a missing persons case, an assortment of missing jewels and a run-in with the Bratva, and you have the start to Kit Karson’s edge-of-your-seat mystery, Land Grab. Not your everyday small-town murder novel, this engaging tale will have you flipping through pages, racing against time to unmask the killer before they make their next deadly move.

GEMS, MAFIA, MURDER

It’s a bad morning for the town when not one, but two of the local patriarchs are taken into the morgue for decidedly unnatural deaths: one a hanging, and one found in the industrial dough mixer. But was it really Bob Dahl who met his end in his own bakery kitchen? And what’s to make of the death of sapphire dealer David Howard — a death made to look like a suicide, but one the local coroner can see right through?

At the center of it all is Sheriff Marshall, who doesn’t have the most experience in investigating a brutal murder — at least, not during his professional career. There is a tragedy in his past that’s haunted him for decades, but that case will just have to wait. Right now, a killer is on the loose through Anderson.

Or could that be killers, plural? Because as the evidence piles up, along with a frustrating lack of leads, it’s possible this whole case just became so much bigger than the small town of Anderson. Big enough that the perpetrators might have been some true professionals — professionals who have evaded capture from far bigger police forces than a motley crew of three deputies, a clerk and one admittedly determined sheriff.

SMALL TOWN, BIG PROBLEMS

In small communities like that of Land Grab, everyone knows everyone. Mix those close quarters with families who have stayed in one place for generations, and those centuries-long feuds can fester into something deadly. The result is the ideal setting for a perfectly balanced book: a murder mystery that’s too exhilarating to be described merely as cozy, but not so dark that it’ll leave you afraid to turn the lights off.

Karson’s prose is sharp, her dialogue punchy and her imagery vivid. The town of Anderson comes alive through her words, from the historic houses along the main street to the Montana wilderness where unknown entities lurk in the shadows. Add to that a wealth of knowledge when it comes to the book’s nitty-gritty details— everything from fly fishing to sapphire formation to what vertebrae shift in a hangman’s fracture — and you have yourself the fix to your murder mystery craving.

As the first book in the Anderson Chronicles, Land Grab ends on a satisfying conclusion while still leaving the door open for future investigations. So keep an eye out for clues as Marshall digs into the dark secrets of this little town. Just try not to pick any favorite Anderson residents … because in a town like this, nobody’s safe.

Buy Land Grab: A Sheriff Elliot Mystery.

Publish Date: 7/25/2023

Genre: Fiction, Mystery, Thrillers

Author: Kit Karson

Page Count: 296 pages

Publisher: Granite Mountain Press

ISBN: 9798987328712