Where the Hurt Is

"Poignant and funny, studded with characters who haunt your imagination long after you've read the final page." -Anne Hillerman, New York Times bestselling author of Cave of Bones

Oklahoma, 1965. Justice has a color line.

Police Chief Emmett Hardy knows his town. He knows its loyalties, its grudges, and the things people prefer not to see. So when the body of a young Black woman is found dumped beside the railroad tracks—her throat cut, her story erased—Hardy understands one thing immediately:

Somebody expects this to disappear.

State authorities move quickly, too quickly, pinning the crime on an easy suspect. Case closed. Problem solved. But Hardy isn’t convinced. And the more he digs, the clearer it becomes that the truth leads somewhere dangerous—toward men with power, money, and friends in high places.

In a town where silence is safer than justice, Hardy must choose: protect his badge and what little peace Burr, Oklahoma still has… or risk everything to expose a killer no one wants unmasked.

Gritty, sharp, and darkly humane, Where the Hurt Is introduces Emmett Hardy—a flawed but relentless lawman navigating racism, corruption, and his own ghosts in a changing America.

Some wounds never heal. Some truths refuse to stay buried.

For readers of Attica Locke and Walter Mosley, this is Southern crime fiction with a conscience—and teeth.