Grimes's beloved Andi Oliver returns, on the run from her past.

In this stunning sequel to Grimes's beloved Biting the Moon, young Andi Oliver is an amnesiac and drifter who awoke in a Santa Fe bed and breakfast with a mans belongings tossed about the room. Adopting a name from the initials on her backpack, Andi moves from one waitress job to the next, from Idaho to North Dakota.

It is in Dakota that she is hired at Klavan's, a massive pigfarming facility that specializes in the dark art of modern livestock management. As Andi begins to uncover the truth about Klavan's and a slaughterhouse called Big Sun, two men are on her trail, one a gunman hired to kill her, another who has followed her across three states demanding something from her forgotten past.

Dakota signals the return of one of Martha Grimes's most indelible heroines, a smart and troubled young woman who, though she doesn't know her own identity, knows right from wrong. Set against the breathtakingly expansive backdrop of the American plains, Dakota will reward Grimes's legion of fans as well as attracting new readers.

"Bestseller Grimes's compelling second novel to feature the enigmatic young woman who calls herself Andi Oliver (after 1999's Biting the Moon) begins with Andi, who's still unaware of her real name or her past, adrift in the Dakota badlands. After rescuing an abandoned donkey, Andi makes a temporary home for herself in the small town of Kingdom, where she soon creates a stir by standing up to some local bullies. She really begins to shake things up in the placid community, however, when she takes a job at a pig farm to try to save the cruelly treated animals bred there. After sneaking into the farm's affiliated assembly-line slaughterhouse, Andi resolves to find a way, within the bounds of the law or not, to call to account the management of both places for violating humane animal treatment laws. While one late plot development stretches credibility, Grimes succeeds in sustaining suspense while graphically portraying the ugliness of animal abuse." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"Grimes well-plotted, skillfully characterized Richard Jury mysteries have a devoted readership; this book, though obviously close to the author's heart, won't appeal as much to that audience, but it well may draw interest from fellow animal-rights activists." Booklist

Martha Grimes is the bestselling author of twenty-three novels, including The Old Wine Shades and Dust.