Dark Country

USA Today bestselling author and Edgar Award nominee, Adam Plantinga, returns with the next explosive installment in the Kurt Argento series as Argento finds himself shielding a teenage boy caught up in a manhunt. After the bloodshed in Fenton, Arizona, former Detroit cop Kurt Argento had to disappear. He reemerges in the small town of Brand, South Dakota, working under an assumed name as a church handyman. It’s a serene existence of tending to the church grounds and avoiding questions. Until he meets seventeen-year-old Majed, a Syrian refugee trying to build a life in Brandt with his single mother, as he’s running for his life. Two men with hard eyes are close behind. Argento steps in, and Majed’s pursuers retreat with a thin excuse about a stolen wallet. It’s a story Argento doesn’t buy for a second. Digging deeper, he uncovers something far more lethal than a street-level shakedown. Majed isn’t just in trouble—he’s a target. And the hunters are closing in. To safeguard Majed, Argento hits the road with the boy, pushing west. And along the way it becomes clear that whatever Majed knows—or carries—someone powerful wants it and will kill to get it. But Argento can’t let that happen. Because he’s made a promise. Protect the boy. Or die trying.

Adam Plantinga is part of the Internet Crimes Against Children unit with the San Francisco Police Department whose first two nonfiction books— 400 Things Cops Know and Police Craft— have become his calling cards to the world of thrillers. 400 Things was nominated for an Agatha, a Macavity, and was deemed “the new Bible for crime writers” by the Wall Street Journal. Adam’s fiction debut, The Ascent, was published in 2024 and became a USA Today bestseller.