When the Fields Go Quiet by Kennedy Layne

In Cane County, justice is as crooked as the trees, and the roots run deep.

Every fall, under the full harvest moon, someone disappears in Cane County.
Most folks chalk it up to bad luck, wild animals, or the old legend of the Threshing Man—a faceless spirit said to haunt the fields of the Ozarks. But Detective Hadley Dawkins knows better. Her brother has been in prison for nearly twenty years, convicted of abducting and killing his girlfriend during the Harvest Festival, even though her body was never found. Hadley was ten years old when it happened. Her testimony helped secure a conviction.

But now another girl is missing, and the scene is eerily familiar.
Dragged back to the town she swore she’d never return to, Hadley finds a community still ruled by silence, suspicion, and stories meant to keep people afraid. Her presence stirs up more than just old gossip. As she unearths a chilling pattern stretching back decades, Hadley begins to question everything she thought she knew about the night that destroyed her family. Because if Mason didn’t kill that girl…someone else did. And they’re not finished yet.

“They say the Threshing Man comes when the fields go quiet. When the air smells like rot and the sky goes copper. He doesn’t reap what’s sown—he takes what’s owed.”