Heidi's moral resilience shines through, making her a far better person than the reviewer feels they could ever be. Despite facing challenges, her ethical core remains steadfast, a trait the reviewer admires.
Galligan skillfully exposes the darker underbelly of Dairy Land, injecting crime into its seemingly idyllic facade. The exploration of the cult adds a captivating layer to the narrative, with unexpected twists keeping the reader engaged.
However, the introduction of a new character falls short for the reviewer. While knowledgeable in his field, his dialogue on cults comes across as disjointed and confusing. This may have been intentional to align with his character's persona, yet it left the reviewer feeling bewildered, especially considering the complexity of the plot.

Let me start by praising the exquisite prose found within this novel; it's truly captivating, almost lyrical in its beauty, a rarity within the thriller genre. The narrative grips you from the outset, pulling you into its world until the very last page. The parallels drawn between Bad Axe and Waco are both chilling and meticulously depicted, offering a sobering reflection on the consequences of blind allegiance and the courage of those who defy it.
At its core, this is a story about the perils of unquestioningly following the wrong leaders, juxtaposed with the resilience of individuals who transcend their past mistakes. As a newcomer to the Bad Axe County series, diving into Book 4 was a revelation, though I can't help but regret not starting from Book 1. Nevertheless, the novel stands on its own, delivering a seamless and engrossing reading experience.

Once again you are in rural Wisconsin and Heidi is dealing with many different people. The biggest besides the city council is a cult that is working its way around and she is looking to stop it. All the while she is still a mother and some days you just don’t have time for laundry. Overall a good book if you read the other ones with some of the same characters. The author is always an easy read the story just flows along, just a good book.

Bad Day Breaking is a good addition for those who love thrillers and mysteries. The characters are believable and the plot doesn't take long to start.. You'll be flipping pages before you know it

Bad Day Breaking is the 4th procedural mystery in Bad Axe County by John Galligan. Released 30th Aug 2022 by Simon & Schuster on their Atria imprint, it's 336 pages and is available in paperback, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.

This is a very well written procedural novel with a returning cast of characters including local law enforcement, some of their family members, and a few eccentric small-town notables. Set in a rural area of Wisconsin, it's both isolated and remote enough to render it something of a closed circle/locked room setup. A cult has moved into the local environs and town inhabitants are very unhappy, bordering on panic. Local sheriff Heidi has a stressful and unmanageable PR crisis to deal with which is definitely not improved by the discovery of a murdered cult member with a slashed throat. A winter storm has inconveniently made her town even more isolated than normal.

The author is wonderfully adept with dramatic tension and plotting, and the prose sings in places. His writing is sublime, and unexpected in a police procedural thriller. It's a western- ish story and will likely appeal to current fans of Craig Johnson, Jeffery Deaver, and Dennis Lehane.

Four stars. Very very well done.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

I didn’t know that it was series when I requested this ARC. It was suspenseful, but very confusing read.

Bad Day Breaking by John Galligan is a 2022 Atria publication.

Heidi Kick, besides dealing with the usual politics of Bad Axe County, must now figure out how to handle a religious cult that has moved in and are beginning to display troublesome signs akin the situation in Waco back in the early 90s. It’s a slippery slope under normal circumstances, as nobody wants history repeating itself. But for Heidi the stakes are raised even higher when a couple of people from her past seem bent on revenge....

This is a good, gritty, atmospheric thriller. Again, the Wisconsin winter backdrop helps create the dark undercurrents, punctuating the bleakness and corruption. The cult segments weren’t as cohesive as I would have liked, but their agenda is clear enough.

Heidi is a complex character. She’s vulnerable and her past is always on the periphery of her subconsciousness. She’s not perfect- and her fate is certainly precarious, but there is no doubt that she’s a survivor- she’s smart, tough, and tenacious- and I hope her story will pick back up soon… another installment is most definitely required!!

Overall, despite a few uneven segments, this is a perfect thriller for deep winter reading!

4 stars

<i>Bad Day Breaking</i> is one of those murder mysteries where eventually it gets difficult to separate the good from the bad. Sheriff Heidi Kick has come back home and is trying to uphold the law in a town where unfortunately the people around her remember what Heidi was really like before she left. <i> Bad Day Breaking</i> is the fourth book in the Bad Axe series written by prolific author and fly fisherman John Gilligan.

A body is found in a drainage pipe on the waterway by a young girl. Sheriff Heidi Kick discovers that the body has been tortured. The victim is associated with a religious movement that has recently established on a nearby vacant lot. The town’s people hate what they feel is a cult want it gone before it turns into another Waco incident. The press is moving in and it is becoming quite a national event. Heidi is trying to protect the religious movements rights until there is proof of any wrong doing. However, she has to do her job when even the people she works with are fighting against her. Her job becomes even more complicated when a person from her past shows up as a new recruit in the movement and some of the other converts are also recently released convicts. People are disappearing and/or murdered and Heidi is not getting the support of the town Council. She’s starting to feel as though she’s in the wrong place at the wrong time even though she loves the job.

I am not a big fan of the way the characters are developed. The prisoners themselves are extremely violent offenders. Each of them has extremely violent interests. Even the sheriff has a background that shows that she is out of control and this may be affecting the way she’s doing her job. She also seems to have evil people working around her even in the police station. There don’t seem to be any innocents and, in my opinion, this is interfering with the story that seems to be built on violence for the sake of violence.

The novel itself is a very fast paced and moving all of the time to the point where you actually wonder whether or not anyone is going to survive some of the things that you start to discover. The story relies too much on mud and cold and the reputation of the cult. Within the cult some of the characters seem to be doing the right thing but the people that have infiltrated the cult are obviously there for the all the wrong reasons. I not not a big fan of the story because it is horrific and seems to rely on frenetic behaviour of bad people. I find that after a while everything is quite predictable if you assume that they’re all going to do the wrong thing.

In general, I do not recommend this book but it might be interesting for people who are interested in law enforcement. I give it a 2 on 5. I want to thank NetGalley and Atria Books for providing me with a digital copy of this book. I provide this review voluntarily.

Published by Atria Books on September 13, 2022

Cults, killers, human trafficking, prison pen pals, corrupt cops, and sexual assaults are among the themes that John Galligan shoehorns into Bad Day Breaking. Galligan also mixed multiple crime story elements in Bad Moon Rising; perhaps the leftovers made it into Bad Day Breaking, the fourth novel in the Bad Axe County series.

Bad Axe is a rural county in Wisconsin. The county sheriff is Heidi Kick. When Heidi and Melissa Grooms were teens, they did a lot of drugs. Heidi got clean and told the truth about their supplier, Roman Vanderhoof, a truth that sent him to prison for 14 years. After his release, he contacted Melissa (who never got clean for long) and came after Heidi.

The story begins with Deputy Mikayla Stonebreaker roughing up Jerome Pearl in a Walmart parking lot. Jerome and his wife Ruth are the leaders of the House of Shalah. County residents view the House of Shalah as a cult and want its members gone. Heidi makes herself unpopular by suspending Stonebreaker because even cult leaders have civil rights. Unfortunately, the Police and Fire Commission has little use for legal niceties. It agrees with the community about the cult and reinstates Stonebreaker. She makes it her mission to force Heidi out of office.

Vanderhoof and Stonebreaker each thirst for revenge, setting up two subplots. A third involves Duke Hashimoto, an ATF agent during the ATF’s disastrous response to violations of gun laws by Branch Davidians in Waco. As older readers might recall, the ATF attempted to execute a search warrant at the Branch Davidian compound despite knowing that cult members were aware that ATF was coming. Four ATF agents were killed in a failed attempt to search the compound. The ATF later embarked on a full-scale retaliatory siege that ended with the deaths of 76 Branch Davidians, including 20 children. Hashimoto was devastated by those losses and by the government’s later attempt to excuse its incompetent decision-making and to rewrite history in its favor.

Hashimoto was running an informant in the House of Shalah cult. Before he could get a warrant to search the Bad Axe County storage units that cult members have occupied, ATF lost interest. Hashimoto retired and his informant was killed. He returned to Wisconsin when Fernanda Carpenter called him about pornographic pictures that cult members had taken of her daughter.

The subplots swirl around like snow on a windy Wisconsin winter afternoon. Two of Heidi’s deputies seem to have ambiguous (possibly improper) relationships with prison pen pals. Released prisoners seem to have a relationship with the cult, which seems to be engaged in the kind of crimes involving women and children that keep Hashimoto from sleeping peacefully. Somebody with embalming skills seems to have disguised a corpse while a different dead body is implicated in a crime to mislead the police about the reason for the murder. Like any good cult, there also seems to be a plan to have members drink the kind of Kool-Aid that induces a permanent sleep. More murders ensue, as well as an attempt to murder Heidi that might cause Heidi to face a murder charge of her own.

The subplots all link together but the sheer number of stories makes it difficult to invest in any of them. It’s all a bit much. At some point, crime plots can become so complex that they lose any semblance of plausibility. I think that happened here. I kept hoping that Galligan would pick a plot and give it some flesh instead of throwing multiple plots against the wall to see if any would stick. Still, the story remains coherent.

Action scenes are creative (diving into a pond of pig manure is an image I won’t soon forget) and Heidi’s character development suggests a real person who has made some mistakes and is doing her best to overcome obstacles and live selflessly. Whether she has a future in law enforcement after this novel is unclear (and perhaps unlikely). I don’t know what that means for the Bad Axe County series, but I hope Galligan’s next novel (whether or not it is in this series) involves a less robust mixture of plot elements.

RECOMMENDED

Bad Day Breaking finds Sheriff Heidi Kick in the middle of showdown between a cult and an anti-cult citizens group. Heidi has a deputy gunning for her and an ex-convict she sent to prison. With danger on all sides, Heidi takes on all comers until justice is served. Action packed and twisted, the plot will keep you guessing as you unwind the twisted cords of Bad Axe County with a heroine who is tough as nails. My voluntary, in biased review is based on a review copy from NetGalley.

Bad Day Breaking by John Galligan
Bad Axe County Series
Worst Turkey Day ever!
I read the first book in this series and I really liked it but I have not read the other books in the series between that book and this one. This one was too grim and gruesome for me. Bad day breaking for sure, bad for everyone.
I really have to give up on this series, too much for me.

This one was pretty good, however I wish that I would have realized that it was part of a series before I requested it!

The writing was good, the mystery was pretty good, the suspense adequate. All in all, I give it 4 stars.

I think I am done with the Sheriff Kick series even if it moves on. There is so much violence and it is so over the top as far as what she does and how she behaves. I get the cop/detective that bend the rules but Sheriff Kick follows no rules and seems to have no concern about her family. It’s just a little to much for me.
I was given a copy from Netgalley. Opinions are my own.

Overall, this book was interesting enough but I wasn't really a fan of it. I fell a little flat for me but it was interesting enough for me to finish. Its faced paced but I lost interest about half way through. I just felt like there was too much going on all at once. There's a creepy cult, there's a murder mystery, there's prisoner pen pals. This is the fourth book in the series so maybe if I had read the others first I might have been more invested.

In Bad Day Breaking, John Galligan’s fourth Bad Ax County novel, Bad Ax County Sheriff Heidi Kick is facing a possible cult infestation in her volatile county. And once again the notable citizens of Bad Ax County are reacting with fear and anger.

Galligan’s Bad Ax series is a fast-pace, full-on run from beginning to end. Sheriff Kick is tougher than an old boot and more than a match for cult-leaders/ponzi-schemers, vengeful parolees and ‘concerned’ citizens. I give Bad Day Breaking four out of five stars and recommend the entire series.

In Bad Day Breaking, the fourth book in the series, Sheriff Heidi has both personal and professional challenges to overcome.

Heidi has had a rough life. Her parents being murdered sent her into a downward spiral of drugs and bad decisions. Now one of the people from her past is coming straight from prison looking for her. In addition, Heidi is trying to get the new cult in town to leave before the local rednecks start shooting everyone. Overall, it is definitely not a good week for Heidi.

I love this character! She is an even bigger hell-kicker than Jane Hawk. No matter what life throws at her, she responds in kind, and not necessarily by following the rules. She is a great female role model for those who follow Reacher or Longmire. 5 stars for the excellent Bad Day Breaking!

Thanks to Atria Books and NetGalley for a digital review copy of the book.

Bad Day Breaking is a dark and gritty tale and is the 4th book in the Bad Axe County series. This is the first book I’ve read from it and aside from intros of the characters, I didn’t feel I needed to read the other books.

Sheriff Heidi White works for Bad Axe County police department. She has her work cut out for her as her drug-addicted alcoholic past has caught up with her. A religious cult, House of Shalah sets up in a storage facility in Bad Axe. An opposing group called Kill the Cult has formed and the groups antagonize each other.

Worried about it becoming another “Waco, Texas” suicide/ murder disaster, Heidi is consistently at odds with her colleagues and residents. When one of the cult followers is found dead, county residents start to panic and making decisions that may cost everyone. Combine that with Heidi’s old “boyfriend” making parole and coming after her because he thinks he’s owed something and you have a relentless cat and mouse game from all parties that exists throughout the book.

Bad Day Breaking is out now. Thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for this eARC.

I really like John Galligan's 'Bad Axe County' series. The fourth book - Bad Day Breaking - has just released.
What do I like about this series?

The protagonist, Sheriff Heidi Kick, has fast become one of my favorite lead characters. When I first 'met' Sherriff Heidi, I couldn't help but think bad a**, as I got to know her. She's tough, smart and determined to keep her town as crime free as possible. And she's a wife and mother to three as well. Now, as much as she wants to erase crime, there are those who are determined to get rid of Sheriff Kick and run things their way. The more things heat up, the cooler Sherriff becomes. On the outside she presents calm and cool, but inside she's paddling hard.

Next up are the plots. Galligan's plotting is fantastic and makes for addictive reading. This time round, there's a cult that has to be evicted. But the formerly quiet group seem to have some new members with different ideas. And....we get to know more of the 'Dairy Queen's' past. There's some darkness there and an old acquaintance is determined to bring it to the light.

I like that we are not just seeing everything from Sheriff Kick's point of view. Instead we get inside looks at what's happening at the cult, from those innocent and those with evil in their hearts. As listeners, we have more information that Heidi does and that just kept me glued to my player.

The ending is not at all what I expected, but is a great way to close this book. This listener will be eagerly awaiting Galligan's next book.

If you're a 'grit-lit' fan, you're going to enjoy this series. You could absolutely read this as a stand alone, but I would start at the beginning with the first book, Bad Axe County.

Bad Day Breaking is author John Galligan's fourth entry into what has become an outstanding and unique thriller written by a supremely talented author. At the outset, a radical religious cadre has taken up residence in a temporary shelter while waiting for more permanent digs. Citizens of Bad Ax want them gone. Law enforcement worries that a standoff might result between the permanent Bad Ax residence and the newcomers. Visions of Jonestown swim in the minds of the local police. When a cult member is found dead, the action begins to accelerate. A man's appearance sent away by the Sheriff adds to a brew of trouble and volatility. John Galligan has authored an extraordinary novel that deals with today's issues and tells a fascinating story; Another Bad Ax winner is a great series.

This book was good. It made me jump and I loved reading it. I wasn’t expecting some of things that happened. Thanks for the ARC.

Sheriff Heidi Kick, of Wisconsin's Bad Axe County, must deal with House of Shalah, a religious cult in this stellar addition to this series. The religious group takes over an empty storage facility. Tensions rise in the community not happy with the group fearful of possible Jonestown or Waco like actions.

One of Heidi's deputies "roughs up" the leader of the cult, Prophet-Father Euodoo Koresh, because she believed he possessed illegal narcotics, which he did not. The deputy is suspended by Heidi, but is later reinstated. The deputy's husband forms an anti-House of Shala vigilante group. It is not long after one of the members is found dead in the river. In addition Heidi must also deal with a person from her past who is looking for revenge.

Heidi has her hands full. She is a flawed, but determined character trying to do what is right. She has overcome alcoholism and drug addiction.

The story moves quickly, I didn't want to put it down. John Galligan's writing is a joy to read. This can be read as a stand alone but I highly recommend the previous novels in this series.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books an ARC. The review is my own.