Winter Reeds

Documentary filmmaker Mike Harrison moves from New York City to a remote northwest town to research an infamous car dealership fire. The generation-old unsolved arson left two people dead, and if Mike can solve the mystery he'll have a career-making movie. He's distracted, though, by beautiful Katie Ames, a fellow New Yorker who's come to Hallmark County with her mentally handicapped brother to piece together their own complicated past.

Katie's dating an architect who was tangled up in the dealership arson. The man is obsessed with Katie, and threatens her when she tries to break up with him. The next morning, the police find his dead body.

Was he murdered? The medical examiner won't say. Mike and Katie are outsiders in a town where the popular Sheriff Trout is a law unto himself, and citizens live under constant surveillance. Trout has his own secrets that he doesn't want Mike to find, and he's not afraid to use his position to intimidate and coerce. But there's a story to be told: one that ties the arson, the dead architect, the sheriff, and Katie's missing family together into a devastating small-town scandal.

Is Mike prepared for the price he'll have to pay to tell it?