Rivers to Blood

An inmate escapes. A man is lynched. And somewhere inside the prison, a sadist is preying on the vulnerable.

John Jordan is caught between crimes on both sides of the razor wire.

A dangerous prisoner has escaped into the rural Florida Panhandle. A shocking lynching threatens to ignite already simmering racial tensions. And inside the prison where John serves as chaplain, someone is forcing victims into horrifying acts of violation.

John is a former cop. He knows crimes that appear separate rarely stay that way.

As he searches for the escaped inmate and investigates the murder, the trail leads through a North Florida of rivers, swamps, prisons, and buried resentments-and toward the place where the fugitive was last seen, an isolated stretch of wilderness where a unit of Navy SEALs is training.

But John is already running on empty.

The cases have taken their toll. So have the people he loves and the people in his care. And as the search closes in on the river, finding the truth becomes a fight simply to survive.

Three crimes. One desperate search. And a harrowing river rescue that may demand more than John Jordan has left to give.

"Lister deftly juggles multiple plot lines."-Publishers Weekly

"Lister's impoverished, rural setting is deeply evocative of a Florida disappearing under the barrage of development."-Booklist