Black Hawk County’s first female police sergeant, Riley Fisher, features in a story about serial crimes, agriculture, and greed. Cedar Falls, Iowa, is replete with THE FIELDS. These days, the small farmsteads are mostly gone, leaving behind rotting barns, closed ancillary businesses, and vacuums where communities used to thrive. We start to find out why.

Chloe Miller, found dead by a farmer, John Brown, lies in a tall-stalked cornfield. The farmer saw an unidentified drone at night over Zephyr’s fields, which are co-operative farms. He sent up his own drone later, during daylight, to check the crops, and saw ripples where someone had run between the stalks. Upon sighting what he guessed was a body, he recalled the drone and phoned the police. Riley Fisher is among the first arrivals.

Chloe’s husband James Miller works nearby at Green Fields Technology, improving crops. Maize means exports to China. GFT is accused of forcing small farmers out of business and emptying communities and the natural environment. Riley notices that no birds follow the plough, because there are no worms in the ground. But bigger crops of maize must be good, right? Unfortunately, we learn that where money is concerned, good does not always follow.

Another young woman has gone missing, Grace Foster, before Chloe is discovered. The police now have to suspect she may be dead too. The story uncovers the details of the investigation, the absolute sadness and waste of a young death. Cedar Falls has teen girls, bored, with no money and nowhere to spend it anyway. One such is Riley’s niece Maddie.

A further strand looks at Governor Bill Hamilton, a respectable man, who has outside people trying to access his files as he approaches re-election. The county isn’t looking good. Sheriff Reed, stressed out about the murder, decides to call in the FBI profiling team, who can speed up lab and DNA tests. With the cast expanding, and midsummer storms forming in the heat, the book quickly becomes ominous and compelling.

Erin Young has written a crime fiction that is not for the nervous, and much as we’d love to say it wouldn’t happen, who knows? THE FIELDS is a fable for our times, a look at what might lie behind rural communities and who might benefit from change. And somewhere out there is at least one killer. I found this first Riley Fisher story a well-judged and scary read.