Anni Koskinen is out of a job. After ten years in the Chicago Police Department, her moral compass led her across the thin blue line to testify against a fellow cop – and, in the aftermath, she lost the only career she ever wanted.

 

As she is putting a new life together, a gentle church worker appears on her doorstep and asks for a ride out of town. It’s not until the FBI gets involved that Anni realizes she has helped a fugitive escape. And not just any fugitive.

 

It’s hard to grasp that Rosa Saenz, a popular figure in her largely Latino parish, was once involved with a radical faction of the American Indian Movement. It’s even harder to believe that Rosa was responsible for the murder of an FBI agent in 1972.

 

But even a close friend in the Bureau urges Anni to work with Rosa’s defense team to find out what happened all those years ago. Because it soon becomes clear that it’s more important to the authorities to find Rosa guilty than to find the truth.

 

Caught in the vortex of a no-holds-barred federal investigation, angry cops who believe she's once again working for the wrong side, and a dangerous group of white supremacists bent on establishing their own version of history, Anni’s investigation into crimes of the past throws her in the path of a clear and present danger. And this time, she stands to lose much more than her job.

 

Drawing on parallels between counterintelligence practices of the Vietnam War era and today’s hostile climate for civil liberties, In the Wind gathers gale-force strength as the events  of the past collide with the present – and, for Anni, the political becomes all too personal.   

 

 

 

"Chicago PI Anni Koskinen investigates a case ranging from the Vietnam era to a current FBI manhunt in Fister's explosive follow-up to 2002's On Edge. As a favor, Koskinen agrees to take Rosa Saenz, one of her friend Father Sikora's community center volunteers, to Bemidji, Minn. That innocent errand sets the ex-cop on a path that will bring her into conflict with FBI agents, her former Chicago police colleagues and even her mentor, FBI Agent Jim Tilquist. In 1972, Tilquist's FBI father, Agent Arne Tilquist, was murdered, and the bureau is still tracking his killer. Fister expertly brings the turbulent past into focus with emphasis on Ishkode, a militant splinter group of AIM (the American Indian Movement), and the FBI's questionable responses to such movements. The Windy City already has plenty of fictional PIs, but they'll have to make room for the gutsy and appealing Anni Koskinen. (June)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

From the gritty streets of Chicago to the swirling winds of rural Minnesota, former detective Anni Koskinen is caught in the middle when the dark secrets of two turbulent times--the radical Vietnam era and post-9/11 surveillance society--come crashing together.

Barbara Fister lives in rural Minnesota, where she works as a librarian at a small liberal arts college.  Please visit www.BarbaraFister.com.