The Unknowing

Runaway. Victim of domestic battery. An older, married boyfriend. Pregnant. And ultimately, dead and forgotten in a cornfield.

For Sheriff's Deputy Wes Spahn, this isn't just another case. For Spahn, this case will have too many emotional similarities to his first case as a detective, similarities that will leave him questioning everything.

When a farmer finds a pile of bones, Spahn begins an odyssey that will lead him inexorably both forward through false leads and empty clues, from incorrect identifications to bad suspects and backward into a case that is a decade old. It also leads to tension between Spahn and his fellow officers as he pushes them out of his way in his zeal to solve the case.

Spahn's victim is Suzanne Margaret Haas, a runaway since early summer. As he puts her life together, Spahn comes to focus on her boyfriend. He is a man nearly ten years older, dishonorably discharged from the military, married but with girlfriends scattered...