Dart ( 2009 )

“Phil Rustad has written an exciting mystery. It has a cinematic quality….”

A bank is held up and everything goes wrong. Five people are shot, one dies, a pregnant woman loses her baby. But the robbers are caught and a conviction seems certain. When the trial takes place, the judge rules out much of the evidence, the defense attorney turns the entire event into a circus and the suspects become celebrities and walk out of court free. Two months later, they’re both dead. Shot sniper style by someone who was an expert marksman using an experimental weapon – a weapon that can kill at over 2000 yards. Retired Minneapolis Homicide Detective Dan Neumann is called in because of his expertise in shooting. He quickly determines that the most likely suspect, Ben Harris, the dead woman’s husband, has neither the skills nor demeanor to be a sniper. But if not Harris, then who did it? And when other bodies appear, Dan must race against the clock and the impending entry of the FBI into the chase-a chase that takes him from Minneapolis to Phoenix to Alaska in pursuit of the killer-a chase that winds up over Duluth Minnesota in a small plane being pursued by F-16s. This is the first work by Phil Rustad.