Bad Day Breaking

n some places it’s easy to make good choices, and then there’s Bad Axe County, Wisconsin, where Sherriff Heidi Kick has clawed her way out of addiction and onto the right side of the law. Her deputy is likely the one using the office computers to exchange risqué communications with prisoners (the men’s comments, such as “if you have children of your own that is not at all a problem with me,” could be a novel of their own). The same deputy’s husband is causing Heidi headaches through his leadership of Kill the Cult, a group that gathers to protest a nomadic religious group that’s moved into a local abandoned storage facility. Cults, whether fiction or nonfiction, are always a big draw, but the undercurrent of strength shown by the sheriff, which is complemented by others who find their way to the right decisions when things heat up, is the quiet draw here. Galligan has created a flawed character to follow in Heidi Kick, who’s at once jaded by her past and her surroundings and ready to spring into action when needed. And boy is she needed. A nonfiction book by an ex-cultmember would be a great companion read to this: try Tara Westover’s Educated.