A New York Times Bestseller Medicine Creek, Kansas. In a town where nothing changes, where Main Street is a two-block stretch of old and dusty businesses, a ghastly murder has taken place. The unknown victim has been placed in a small clearing in a sea of corn. Within twenty-four hours the sheriff is assuring a flood of reporters and tense residents that this is an isolated death -- until Special Agent Pendergast arrives in the stifling August heat to declare it the work of a serial killer.