This "impossible to forget" psychological thriller set in small town Iowa in the 1960s pits a detective struggling with his own demons against a mysterious outcast who may or may not be a serial killer(The Wall Street Journal)
James Sallis meets Mindhunter in this stylish and atmospheric noir, a midcentury heartland gothic with abounding twists and a feverish conclusion.
Local outcast Rigby Sellers lives in squalor on a dilapidated houseboat moored on the Mississippi River. With only stolen mannequins and the river to keep him company, Rigby begins to spiral from the bizarre to the threatening. As a year of drought gives way to a season of squalls, a girl is found trembling on the side of the road, claiming her boyfriend was murdered. The townspeople of nearby Oscar turn their suspicions toward Sellers.
Town sheriff Amos Fielding knows this crime is more than he can handle alone. He calls on the regional marshal up in Minnesota, and detective Edward Ness arrives in Oscar to help him investigate the homicide and defuse the growing unrest. Ness, suffering his own demons, is determined to put his past behind him and solve the case. But soon more bodies are found. As Ness and Fielding uncover disturbing facts about Sellers, and a great storm floods the Mississippi, threatening the town, Oscar is pushed to a breaking point even Ness may not be able to prevent.
Genre: Mystery
James Sallis meets Mindhunter in this stylish and atmospheric noir, a midcentury heartland gothic with abounding twists and a feverish conclusion.
Local outcast Rigby Sellers lives in squalor on a dilapidated houseboat moored on the Mississippi River. With only stolen mannequins and the river to keep him company, Rigby begins to spiral from the bizarre to the threatening. As a year of drought gives way to a season of squalls, a girl is found trembling on the side of the road, claiming her boyfriend was murdered. The townspeople of nearby Oscar turn their suspicions toward Sellers.
Town sheriff Amos Fielding knows this crime is more than he can handle alone. He calls on the regional marshal up in Minnesota, and detective Edward Ness arrives in Oscar to help him investigate the homicide and defuse the growing unrest. Ness, suffering his own demons, is determined to put his past behind him and solve the case. But soon more bodies are found. As Ness and Fielding uncover disturbing facts about Sellers, and a great storm floods the Mississippi, threatening the town, Oscar is pushed to a breaking point even Ness may not be able to prevent.
Genre: Mystery
Praise for this book
"The Houseboat is as taut and chilling as it is vivid and self-assured. Bahr delivers a gritty, page-turning debut not to be missed." - Jonathan Evison
"Dane Bahr has written a classic mystery that propels his readers through the avenues, back roads, and waterways of a small town on a dire mission to sort through gossip and find the truth. Yet along the way, he also creeps us out, pushes our buttons, challenges our moral limits, and subverts our expectations in all the best ways, right up to the very last page. A subtle and smartly paced psychological page-turner with characters you love for their flaws." - Sarah Gerard
"It'd be easy to mistake Rigby Sellers--the drifter at the center of Dane Bahr's The Houseboat-- as an invention of Cormac McCarthy or William Gay, but it'd also be a mistake. Bahr has created a literary miscreant all his own, and for all the fright Rigby conjures--and there's plenty of it--he's as much a foil for the supposedly civilized small Iowa town he haunts as he is a spectacle unto himself. This book is as eerie and dark as a Mississippi river slough, and just as rank. You don't want to miss it." - Peter Geye
"The Houseboat will unsettle you, scare you, and break your heart. It's grimly authentic, bleak and beautiful. Its people wear the faces we see in our mirrors, and the ones we glimpse in our most terrifying dreams. It's a distinctly American gothic mystery--perfect reading for the Lovecraftian times we are living in." - Molly Gloss
"The Houseboat is a new noir classic. I loved it." - Tod Goldberg
"Dane Bahr has an unteachable knack to make the natural world a character. And once the book's ecosystems spring to vibrant life, there is a hell of a page-turner floating on top." - Joshua Mohr
"With scenes as propulsive as any found in True Detective and dialogue that could hold its own against the novels of Cormac McCarthy or Donald Ray Pollock, Dane Bahr's debut, The Houseboat, is truly a thing of beauty! Enticing the reader from the go, with a clear, clever, and ultimately haunting writing style, Bahr delivers on every page." - Urban Waite
"Dane Bahr has written a classic mystery that propels his readers through the avenues, back roads, and waterways of a small town on a dire mission to sort through gossip and find the truth. Yet along the way, he also creeps us out, pushes our buttons, challenges our moral limits, and subverts our expectations in all the best ways, right up to the very last page. A subtle and smartly paced psychological page-turner with characters you love for their flaws." - Sarah Gerard
"It'd be easy to mistake Rigby Sellers--the drifter at the center of Dane Bahr's The Houseboat-- as an invention of Cormac McCarthy or William Gay, but it'd also be a mistake. Bahr has created a literary miscreant all his own, and for all the fright Rigby conjures--and there's plenty of it--he's as much a foil for the supposedly civilized small Iowa town he haunts as he is a spectacle unto himself. This book is as eerie and dark as a Mississippi river slough, and just as rank. You don't want to miss it." - Peter Geye
"The Houseboat will unsettle you, scare you, and break your heart. It's grimly authentic, bleak and beautiful. Its people wear the faces we see in our mirrors, and the ones we glimpse in our most terrifying dreams. It's a distinctly American gothic mystery--perfect reading for the Lovecraftian times we are living in." - Molly Gloss
"The Houseboat is a new noir classic. I loved it." - Tod Goldberg
"Dane Bahr has an unteachable knack to make the natural world a character. And once the book's ecosystems spring to vibrant life, there is a hell of a page-turner floating on top." - Joshua Mohr
"With scenes as propulsive as any found in True Detective and dialogue that could hold its own against the novels of Cormac McCarthy or Donald Ray Pollock, Dane Bahr's debut, The Houseboat, is truly a thing of beauty! Enticing the reader from the go, with a clear, clever, and ultimately haunting writing style, Bahr delivers on every page." - Urban Waite
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