BROKEN HEARTLAND

Nothing but problems for Sheriff English and his hotwired brother.

Deputy Wynn’s beautiful morning in Benteen County, Kan., is spoiled when he gets tangled in a car accident with a recklessly driven station wagon and a school bus. Wynn, the most seriously injured, lands in the Wichita ICU. The one bright spot for his boss, Sheriff English, aka Englishman, is that the incident makes him too busy to attend the pancake breakfast of the Buffalo Springs Chamber of Commerce and debate his rival, blowhard Lieutenant Greer. It’s Election Day, and English reckons his days in office may be numbered. Meanwhile, English’s Cheyenne half-brother Mad Dog, getting a premonition that Englishman is in danger, rushes back from a retreat in the Black Hills with his pet wolf-dog Hailey. Finding his farm vandalized, he sees red. A similar foreboding strikes Englishman’s two daughters, Heather and Heather, who also rush home from college, the elder Heather just in time to be deputized. Her dad can use her help as he tries to talk down enraged nerd Chucky Williams after a Columbine-like incident erupts at Buffalo Springs High School. On top of this, the morning bus crash looks suspicious. Not far away, Mad Dog gets captured by some local organ farmers who see him as a human goldmine.

What Hayes (Prairie Gothic, 2003, etc.) lacks in finesse he makes up in winning audacity.