Bastard's Bluff

Burning crosses on lawns and swastikas on Jewish graves? 

These are outrages wildly out of place in neighborly Hercules, Wis. But when a rash of hate crimes strikes, villagers turn to ex-police chief Jim Otis for help. Trouble is, after a scandal over a high-school cheerleader, Jim's no longer a cop. The crimes spiral beyond the new police chief's control. Suspicion focuses on Norman Klinghofer, who lives quietly in a historic family compound atop Bastard's Bluff. When Norman is fingered for robbing the town's only bank and shooting an innocent teller, the FBI storms into Hercules. Jim Otis doesn't believe Norman is the raving bigot behind the hateful Badger Bund's website, but he's powerless to intervene until his teenage daughter, Natalie, thrusts herself (without permission) into the siege on Bastard's Bluff. Jim is forced to summon his detective skills and solve the mystery before hardboiled FBI agent Flint Hardesty turns Bastard's Bluff into another Ruby Ridge.

David Benjamin began his career as a storyteller in Mrs. Poss’ second-grade class at St. Mary’s School in Tomah, Wisconsin. His fictional memoir, The Life and Times of the Last Kid Picked, originally published by Random House, was reprinted by Last Kid Books in 2019. His Last Kid Books include a collection of his essays, Almost Killed by a Train of Thought, two  short story anthologies, The Melting Grandmother and Other Short Works and Christmas in a Jugular Vein and sixteen novels, Three’s a Crowd, A Sunday Kind of Love, Summer of ’68, Skulduggery in the Latin Quarter, Black Dragon, They Shot Kennedy, Fat Vinny’s Forbidden Love, Witness to the Crucifixion, Choose Moose, Bistro Nights, The Voice of the Dog and Benjamin’s Jim Otis mystery series, Jailbait, Bastard’s Bluff, Woman Trouble, Dead Shot and Cheat. As a journalist, Benjamin has edited newspapers, published and edited several magazines, and authored SUMO: A Thinking Fan’s Guide to Japan’s National Sport.

Since its launch in 2019, Benjamin’s publishing imprint, Last Kid Books, has won more than forty independent-press awards. These include, for They Shot Kennedy, the Midwest Book Awards’ 2021 grand prize for literary/historical/contemporary fiction, and a 2022 Silver Medal for Humor to Fat Vinny’s Forbidden Love in the Independent Book Publishers Association’s prestigious Benjamin Franklin Awards.

Benjamin and his wife, Junko Yoshida, have been married for ages. They live sometimes in Madison, Wis., and the rest of the time in Paris.