Knights of Harvest

UFOs, cattle mutilations and murder intertwine in Kevin Cahill's terrifying thriller, Knights of Harvest.

A quiet rural farming town is shaken by a macabre triple-slaying at the height of a sweltering, late summer harvest. Seth Cameron, a sorrowful drunk and hired hand at the Linville Reeves farm, has made rambling and bizarre statements to police, claiming he and the Reeves family were terrorized by two inhabitants of a UFO that landed in a wheat field near the remote farm. The region has been inundated with a spate of UFO sightings and gruesome animal mutilations all summer, and police suspect Cameron is using these unlikely tales to cover his guilt for the murders of Reeves and his wife and granddaughter.

However, the first to arrive at the murder scene was Officer Ken Jackson, who discovered evidence that suggests Cameron is telling the truth, but before Jackson could report what he found, an army of government agents suddenly appeared and commandeered the crime scene and systematically made the corroborating evidence go away. Now Jackson stands alone against Jonathan Carswall, steely-eyed agent of the clandestine government agency, who made it clear as a matter of 'national security, ' that Jackson might find his life in jeopardy if he attempts to disclose what he knows.

Charged with three counts of Capital Murder, Seth Cameron's only hope for exoneration rests on Jackson and his fellow police officer and girlfriend, Carly Farrell. Jackson confides in the local Public Defender, whose skepticism in Seth's rambling story is stunningly shattered by the always steady and reliable Jackson, who most people believe is going to become the next county sheriff in next year's election. Admittedly outmatched by the government conspiracy, Jackson suggests they turn to the PD's brother, the flamboyant and nationally known criminal defense attorney Marcus Payne, whose once infamous career lies in ruins in the aftermath of his wife's murder by mobsters. The grieving Payne has returned to his hometown, ridden with guilt and content to drink himself to death, but Jackson's bizarre tale of UFO murderers and government conspiracy is too much for Payne to resist.

Payne agrees to take on Cameron's defense, a dangerous legal web in which key witnesses begin to disappear or die in strange accidents. Obviously, Agent Carswall and his superiors are determined to cover up what happened on the Reeves farm, and they will stop at nothing to prevent the truth from coming out. It's a deadly courtroom chess game that may prove lethal for Payne and his compatriots. This unlikely team of cops, lawyers, joined by a loopy alcoholic newspaper reporter ultimately uncover the terrifying truth of what happened that night on the Reeves farm. In the end, they may regret they did . . .