"A suspenseful tale, told from the title to the end with wit and warmth by a very talented writer." -Nancy Pickard, award-winning author

Summer in Benteen County, Kansas, is a season possessed of all the gentle subtlety of an act of war. Winter, of course, is no better, but remembrance of its frosts and blizzards and winds that begin to suck away your life before you walk a dozen steps has grown faint by the early hours of a Sunday morning in late June. While some try to sleep, and Sheriff English and his ex-wife try sex, the Reverend Peter Simms takes an early walk in the park and encounters someone counting coup. When the Sheriff's part-Cheyenne brother, Mad Dog, arrives to meditate, he finds the Reverend's mutilated corpse. Mad Dog is the obvious suspect and he begins to hang out in the town jail while Sheriff English widens his net. English picks up several suspicious characters, and an increasingly dark history for the Simms family. The case grows stormier, and so does the weather. As a tornado gathers to hurl its fury on the hapless town, the fury of the killer rises to meet it.

J.M. "Mike" Hayes was born in Kansas. He was a graduate student studying archaeology at Wichita State University when he joined the National Science Foundation project that inspired The Spirit and the Skull. He lives in Arizona now, and has written seven other books - the six Mad Dog & Englishman Mysteries and The Grey Pilgrim.

Summer in Benteen County, Kansas, is a season possessed of all the gentle subtlety of an act of war. Winter, of course, is no better, but the memory of frosts and blizzards and winds that begin to suck away your life before you walk a dozen steps has grown faint by the early hours of a Sunday morning in late June. While some try to sleep, and some like Sheriff English and his ex-wife try sex, the Reverend Peter Simms takes an early walk in the park and encounters someone counting coup. When the Sheriff's part-Cheyenne brother, Mad Dog, finds the Reverend's mutilated corpse, Mad Dog becomes the obvious suspect. Sheriff English widens his net and picks up not only several suspicious characters, but an increasingly dark history for the Simms family. The case grows stormier. So does the weather. As a tornado gathers to hurl its fury on the hapless town, the fury of the killer rises to meet it in an ending that will, literally, blow readers away.