For readers who enjoy crime fiction with psychological tension, relentless investigations and a villain who is anything but straightforward, Dutch Haid’s The Bitch Farm and forthcoming novel The Deed offer a dark, interconnected thriller saga built around murder, identity, obsession and pursuit.
Published in 2024, The Bitch Farm introduces readers to James Alfred Zachary, the owner of Time Everlasting Cemetery in Florida. On the surface, James appears to be a successful businessman. Beneath that outward identity, however, exists a disturbing psychological world involving James and the personalities he knows as Zac and Jessie. Their competing impulses become central to a series of disappearances and murders that gradually draw the attention of local police and the FBI.
The title itself carries a sinister meaning. A secluded section of cemetery property becomes known privately as the “Bitch Farm,” a place associated with James’s violent past and the hidden fate of multiple victims.
But The Bitch Farm is not simply a story told from the criminal’s perspective. Running parallel to James’s increasingly dangerous world is a determined law-enforcement investigation.
FBI Special Agent Brad Ashley becomes personally involved when his sister Gwendolyn disappears. Her case exposes unsettling clues and ultimately pushes Brad deeper into an investigation involving other missing women. Alongside FBI agent Jack Baird, Detective Sue Gunther and members of a specially organized task force, Brad begins looking for patterns that could connect seemingly separate crimes.
That dual perspective gives the story much of its suspense. Readers are allowed close access to the killer’s world while investigators remain several steps behind, searching for enough evidence to identify and stop him.
And just when The Bitch Farm appears ready to close its darkest chapter, the investigation takes a dramatic turn. A report arrives from Slidell, Louisiana, describing another missing woman and a crime scene with disturbing similarities to the Florida cases.
That development opens the door directly into The Deed.
Now in the publishing phase and coming soon, The Deed expands both the geographical scope and psychological stakes of Haid’s story. James has left Florida behind and entered a new life under the identity Hershel Liam Daquin, complete with a changed appearance and counterfeit personal records.
Yet changing a name and face does not necessarily erase the person underneath.
Hershel attempts to build a different existence while Jessie and Zac remain part of his internal world. The result is an unsettling question that runs beneath the sequel: Can someone truly escape his past when the greatest danger travels inside him?
Meanwhile, Brad and the investigative team refuse to give up. Their pursuit expands beyond Florida and Louisiana as new identities, coastal locations, boats and fresh crimes complicate the search. By the later stages of The Deed, investigators believe their target may be moving along the East Coast under yet another identity.
Together, The Bitch Farm and The Deed form a continuing crime-thriller story in which the audience knows the darkness investigators are trying to uncover but never quite knows what shape it will take next.
For readers who enjoy disturbing psychological mysteries, serial-killer fiction, investigative suspense and long-form cat-and-mouse storytelling, Dutch Haid’s saga offers a journey into a world where identity can change, evidence can disappear and the hunt is far from over.
The Bitch Farm is available now on Amazon, while The Deed will be available soon.
