Thin Places, Paperback

This is a story about the courageous family of Jackson Jazz Hightower, a lovable, mysterious thirteen-year-old boy. Jacks is on a mission with global implications but has a treacherous, shadowy enemy with an ancient oath to stop him.. The adventures begin when his traumatized cousin, Ben Keegan, comes to stay at the Hightower farm. How this peculiar boy helps his damaged friend survive in the early part of the book is unique in fiction, and reveals the first clue to his identity, as well as producing honest answers to hard issues every family faces. After the Shadow comes calling late one night in the boys' bedroom, the action that follows is relentless. The backdrop for this classic battle between light and darkness is one that seventy million Midwesterners are too familiar with: a perilous winter storm dubbed "The White Hurricane." Jacks' father, Gurney, a research scientist and professor at Notre Dame, is buried alive in his SUV just six miles west of South Bend. He risked the trip home from an assignment in Chicago against his wife's pleas because the one he affectionately calls "Babe" is nine months pregnant and without medical help thanks to the storm. Of course Jacks leaves the farm on a snowmobile accompanied by his golden lab, Bear, to attempt the rescue of his father. When he is joined in the search later by Ben on his noble horse, Pockets, Babe is left with only her eight-year-old daughter, Carrie to help her if the baby comes. What the Ancient Evil has planned for the boys in the blizzard on Interstate 80, along with the unspeakable malice he dispatches to the Hightower farm that evening, make for a climax that will keep you turning pages, losing sleep, and demanding a sequel.