The Houseboat

The Houseboat is a stunning debut novel by Dane Bahr, a dark and atmospheric noir mystery set in the small town of Oscar, Iowa during the early 1960s. When a girl stumbles out of the woods claiming her boyfriend has been murdered, all eyes turn to Rigby Sellers — a deeply unsettling social outcast who lives alone on a decaying houseboat moored along the Mississippi River, keeping company only with stolen mannequins he treats as his family.

Town sheriff Amos Fielding knows the case is beyond him and calls in regional detective Edward Ness, a man haunted by his own painful past. As the investigation deepens and a great Mississippi flood threatens to swallow the town whole, Ness and Fielding find themselves chasing a suspect whose bizarre behavior blurs every line between danger and madness, guilt and innocence.

Bahr writes with the lyrical precision of a poet and the atmospheric dread of a classic gothic novelist. Praised for its echoes of William Faulkner, Cormac McCarthy, and Edgar Allan Poe, The Houseboat is less about solving a crime and more about confronting the monstrous potential that lives quietly inside ordinary places and ordinary people — a theme that makes it deeply, uncomfortably compelling.

This Midwestern Gothic thriller is perfect for readers who love literary noir, richly drawn settings, and psychologically complex characters. With a feverish conclusion that refuses to let you go, The Houseboat announces Dane Bahr as one of the most exciting new voices in American crime fiction. It is a book that chills, haunts, and lingers long after the last page.