Ken Plough was the scourge of tiny Oletha, Iowa for decades. He stole livestock, robbed homes and violated young women. He avoided the consequences of his actions by bullying and terrorizing the townspeople with threats against them, their families and homes, burning a house to the ground in one instance, and critically wounding a neighbor in another.

In an explosion of violence, Plough is gunned down as he sits in his truck outside a local watering hole; witnessed by more than 30 people who surrounded the truck where Plough sat with his wife. None of the witnesses would admit to seeing the shooter or knowing anything about the event.


Plough's wife enlists the FBI to investigate the matter claiming the community and local law enforcement are acting "under the color of law" to deny her late husband justice, thereby "willfully depriving or conspiring to deprive him of a right protected by the Constitution." At the request of the regional U.S. Attorney, Special Agents Eileen Prado and Ira Fisher arrive in Oletha to investigate and are greeted by a hostile citizenry and absolute silence. But this is only the beginning of what graduates into the most chilling three weeks of their careers.


Although fiction, Wretched is based on two true crimes that provide the foundation for the novel. The author also mines information and detail from FBI sources as well as psychological studies and literature on the subject of serial offenders creating a dark world the reader will fully and believably inhabit.