Sara Paretsky: Bleeding Kansas (UK 2009)

From the Publisher:
The Grelliers and the Schapens are two families who have been farming in the Kaw River Valley for over a hundred and fifty years, their lives connected through the generations by history and geography. Gina Haring, bringing with her the liberal air of the big city, moves into a dilapidated house near both families' properties. Gina has secrets, her own reasons for being in the Kansas countryside, and they're not necessarily what the people around her imagine. Susan's involvement with her stirs up the wrath of the Schapen clan -- and has cataclysmic results for her own family.

Sara Paretsky: Bleeding Kansas. Hodder & Stoughton, ISBN: 9780340963746 (April, 2009), 496 S., £7.99.

Sara Paretsky: Bleeding Kansas (USA 2008)

From the Publisher:
In Kansas, three families have coexisted not-so-peacefully for more than one hundred and fifty years: the Grelliers, the Fremantles, and the Schapens. Into their lives comes Gina Haring, a relative of the Fremantles who is house-sitting the derelict family mansion while she puts her own life in order. Her lifestyle and beliefs will put her at odds with her neighbors-and test the mettle of a community being swept up in events beyond its control.

Sara Paretsky: Bleeding Kansas. Penguin, ISBN: 9780451224484 (October, 2008), 624 S., $9.99.

Sara Paretsky: Bleeding Kansas (UK 2008)

From the Publisher:
The Grelliers and the Schapens are two families who have been farming in the Kaw River Valley for over a hundred and fifty years, their lives connected through the generations by history and geography. Gina Haring, bringing with her the liberal air of the big city, moves into a dilapidated house near both families' properties. Gina has secrets, her own reasons for being in the Kansas countryside, and they're not necessarily what the people around her imagine. Susan's involvement with her stirs up the wrath of the Schapen clan -- and has cataclysmic results for her own family.

Sara Paretsky: Bleeding Kansas. A Novel. Hodder & Stoughton, ISBN: 0340839112 (March, 2008), 431 S., £16.99.

Sara Paretsky: Bleeding Kansas (USA 2008)

From the Publisher:
Set in the Kaw River Valley where Paretsky grew up, Bleeding Kansas is the story of the Schapens and the Grelliers, two farm families whose histories have been entwined since the 1850s, when their ancestors settled the valley as antislavery emigrants.

Today, the Schapen family, terrified by the lawlessness of the 1970s-when Lawrence was the most violent college town in the nation-has turned to that old-time religion for security. The Schapens keep a close eye on all their neighbors, most especially the Grelliers. They maintain careful track of everyone's misdeeds, printing the most egregious on their family website. When Gina Haring, a Wiccan, moves into an empty farmhouse and starts practicing pagan rites, the family members are so outraged that they begin an active harassment campaign against the Wiccans.

The Schapens worry, too, about who stands better with the Lord: their family or the Grelliers. When a Schapen cow gives birth to what may be a "Perfect Red Heifer"-needed if the temple is ever rebuilt in Jerusalem-the Schapens feel convinced that God is indeed smiling on them.

Despite parental cautions, the Grelliers' teenagers are enraged by the Schapens. All their short lives, they and the young Schapens have fought. One particularly angry confrontation causes Chip Grellier to be expelled from school and consequentlyto join the army. Chip's death in Iraq is the catalyzing event for momentous changes in the lives of not only both the Schapens and the Grelliers but of all the families in the valley. The powerful, climactic scene at Gina Haring's Samhain bonfire will forever haunt the reader.

Sara Paretsky: Bleeding Kansas. A Novel. Putnam's, ISBN: 0399154051 (January, 2008), 431 S., $25.95.