Publisher's Synopsis
In Sleepy Eye, Minnesota, a serial killer is stalking women. Besides freezing to death, everyone in Minnesota is feeling the economic tailspin of financial destruction. Looks like a second depression according to the old-timers in the last booth of Gilly's Cafe. Debt is in the tank for everyone. Francine Anderson's life is a train wreck, derailing as she breathes. By day she's a waitress at Gilly's Cafe and by night a singer in a honky-tonk bar. There are a million reasons why she feels like driving her car into a bridge abutment, but the main reason is a dead battery in a bitter snowstorm in the middle of the night with no help in sight. Then she gets her car jumped by seemingly a nice and helpful man. For Franny, it is the most sobering moment in her life. Vowing to put down the bottle, she takes on cantankerous Gilly and redecorates his cafe, painting the back wall bright red against his wishes. Then seventeen-year old Susan Stanley goes missing during the painting party. Because everything Franny does is written down in her songs, she writes Sweet Susan, which is carried on CNN in an effort to find Susan. Local police departments compare reports and discover that four other women have been found dead in fields, all strangled. Susan is in the hands of a deranged killer with nothing to lose. Now Franny knows without a doubt that she was in a serial killer's truck for a few minutes while the battery was charging. Due to the publicity surrounding the song, Franny is offered a recording contract and has her fifteen minutes of fame. But, that leads the killer directly to Gilly's Cafe. Franny has to learn to fight for her life before she is the next to die."
