Pat Stoltey Knihy

1838: Delia Pritchard gets a chilly reception when she returns to Sangamon, Illinois, after a thirteen-year absence. She’s riding a Palouse stallion, is dressed like a man, has a bullet in her shoulder, and leads a horse with a seven-year-old black boy astride. Some think Delia left at the age of sixteen because she killed her parents and set fire to their cabin with the bodies inside. It is also rumored that Delia runs with outlaws and that she shot a lawman. When Doc Hemmer insists Delia and the boy remain in Sangamon while she recuperates from surgery, he doesn’t realize a vicious gang known as the Biedler brothers is on her trail. Preacher John Claymore, also unaware of the danger, wants to meet Doc’s patient with the beautiful eyes. Farmer Annie Gray kills one of the Biedlers and triggers a violent response from the gang. Delia knows the brothers will be relentless. She brought this disaster down on the town and its residents. Can she save them all?

"In the early 1800s in a village on the Illinois frontier, young Jo Mae Proud wishes her cruel brother dead. Forced into prostitution by Caswell, Jo Mae discovers she is pregnant and vows to escape. When Caswell is injured by a near lightning hit, he becomes more dangerous, and more hated. The flawed residents of the Village of Sangamon harbor many secrets. Caswell knows them all. Will he tell? Jo Mae runs away and eventually finds shelter with Fish, the old Kickapoo Indian who camps by the river. Wishing Caswell Dead is a historical mystery about the evil that hides within a village, one girl who is determined to save herself and her child, and a violent murder no one wants to solve"--