Amy Wilson joined her local school board to make a difference in her community. Instead, she found herself at the center of a vicious culture war she never wanted to fight. When anonymous threats escalate to violent harassment, Amy refuses to back downâeven as the danger mounts.
Her uncle Jack, a retired detective, uncovers evidence of a shadowy network of political extremists working to destroy her. But the deeper he digs, the darker the conspiracy becomes. As the threats turn deadly, Amy and Jack race to expose the truth before civic service exacts the ultimate cost.
Amy Wilson joined her local school board to make a difference in her community. Instead, she found herself at the center of a vicious culture war she never wanted to fight. When anonymous threats escalate to violent harassment, Amy refuses to back downâeven as the danger mounts.
Her uncle Jack, a retired detective, uncovers evidence of a shadowy network of political extremists working to destroy her. But the deeper he digs, the darker the conspiracy becomes. As the threats turn deadly, Amy and Jack race to expose the truth before civic service exacts the ultimate cost.
Amy
Her "Moms for Liberty" T-shirt rides up, exposing flesh that bulges and spills over black leggings. Dark sweat blooms under her arms as she lurches toward my son, teeth bared, eyes fever-bright. "Your mother is an evil bitch. She hurts people." Each syllable slashes through the air like a blade, and I watch helplessly as my boy flinches under her assault. The words seem to leave physical woundsâI can almost see them cutting into him, drawing blood invisible to everyone but a mother's eyes.
Matt shrinks into himself as he hurries from the school building, shoulders curved inward like a shield. Each step seems to cost him, and watching him try to make himself invisible tears at my heart. My knuckles bleach white on the steering wheel. Every maternal instinct screams at me to surge out, to place myself between this woman and my child. But I know better. These people are like sharksâthe smallest drop of confrontation sends them into a feeding frenzy.
When Matt finally reaches the sanctuary of our car, the woman turns her fury on me. She slams against my window, her face so close I can count the flecks of spittle on the glass. Her fingertips leave greasy smears as she jabs the window again and again. "We're comin' for you!" The hatred twisting her features transports me back to those infamous photos from Little Rock, 1957âthe same raw malevolence carved into the faces of segregationists as they screamed at black children seeking an education. "Wait 'til you see what we have in store for you!" Her mouth contorts around the words, and I realize only three inches and a pane of glass separate me from pure, distilled hate.
I slam the accelerator, a savage satisfaction flowing through me as gravel sprays from my tires. In the rearview mirror, her figure grows smaller but no less menacingâstill stabbing the air with accusing fingers, still spewing hate into the autumn afternoon. Only when she vanishes from view do I dare look at Matt. The sight of him breaks my heart: face drained of color, lower lip quivering like he's seven years old again.
"Oh, sweetie, I'm so sorry." My hand finds his knee, seeking connection, trying to anchor us both in this storm. "You should never have had to face that."
"What the fuck was that about?" His voice cracks, and I hear the little boy beneath the teenager's anger.
"Language, Matt." The words slip out automatically, a mother's reflex, though God knows he's earned the right to curse. I draw a shaky breath. "She's upset about the school board's Covid policiesâthe remote learning, social distancing, mask mandates. She thinks we're hurting children." I swallow hard. "And she's convinced we're about to force vaccines on everyone."
He strips off his mask, holding it between his fingers like a puzzling artifact. "What's the big deal? Most days I forget I'm even wearing it."
I force steadiness into my voice, though my hands still tremble on the wheel. "It's not really about the mask, honey. They've turned public health into their own private war zone." I pause at a red light, watching mountain bikers glide past, my eyes darting to the rearview mirrorâchecking, always checking now. "For these people, it's about control. About refusing to be told what to do."
"But ..." Confusion furrows his brow. "We're told what to do all the time." His arm sweeps outward, encompassing the world beyond our car windows. "Stop at red lights. Go to school. Wear seatbelts." He tugs at his shoulder strap for emphasis, his expression pure teenage bewilderment. What's the big deal? his face seems to ask. That's just how things work.
My heart swells and breaks simultaneously, watching him. I drink in every detail of his profileâthe sandy blonde hair that needs cutting, the lean planes of his face where baby fat once dwelled, those startling blue eyes that see straight through adult pretenses to the truth beneath. In eighteen short months, my little boy has transformed into someone who can slice through grown-up nonsense with devastating precision. Yet he's still my child, still so achingly young, and guilt sears through me like acidâmy choices, my stand for what's right, has dropped him into this maelstrom of adult hatred. What kind of mother does that make me?
"You're right," I say, carefully choosing my words while my mind still churns with the confrontation. "But when these health requirements collide with politics, everything gets twistedâand ugly." I'm doing my best to sound like the calm, rational mother he needs right now, even as my stomach still churns from that woman's hate-filled face at my window.
"What does politics have to do with any of it?" His genuine bewilderment makes my heart ache.
I glance at him, seeing both the child who needs protection and the young man who deserves honest answers. "I'm about to oversimplify something incredibly messy, but here goes." I take a deep breath. "Politics is fundamentally about conflictâabout how people with different beliefs decide to live together. Some people, like me and the other board members, believe the government has a duty to protect public health through things like mask requirements and vaccines. We think that's as basic as maintaining roads or providing clean water." I pause, watching his face absorb this. "Others believe government should back off completely, that these choices should be purely personal - even during a pandemic. And right now, that disagreement has turned toxic."
Mattâs baby blues glazed over about half way through my short spiel. I should have boiled it down to its essence: Some people just love to fight. He's now tuned me out, fingers tapping his phone to pull up BTS. The Korean pop washes over us as we drive through the tunnel of bur oaks that mark our neighborhood, their branches weaving a green canopy overhead. Beyond them, Grand Mesa rises like a sentinel, its flat top scraping the Colorado sky at 10,000 feet. The late afternoon sun paints its sandstone cliffs deep red, the vertical grooves like ancient scripture carved by giants.
Mesa Vista has always felt like paradise to me. This small city on the Western Slope of the Colorado Rockies evolved from a mountain-man rendezvous point into a refuge for people seeking escape from Front Range congestion. The Utes had known its magic first. Now it draws outdoor enthusiasts, adventure seekers, and increasingly, people looking to reshape it in their own image.
Matt's cry shatters my reverie, as I pull the car into our cul-de-sac. "Holy shit! Mom!"
I follow his gaze to our front lawn, where someone has burned "EVIL" into the grass. Each letter is two feet wide, the dead grass brown against the green, like a scar across our property.
The rage comes firstâhot, electric, overwhelming. Fear follows more slowly, a cold undercurrent beneath the anger. My muscles tense, my teeth grind. I don't truly believe they'd hurt us physically. But then again, I hadn't believed they'd terrorize my child or vandalize my home.
Later, I stand at the kitchen window, staring out at those brutal letters burned into my lawn. All thisâthe vandalism, the threats, the harassmentâterrifies me. I've never gone through anything like this before. I'm not used to feeling scared. Four years ago, when I ran for school board, I thought I was signing up for budget meetings and curriculum reviews. Board service hadn't seemed political at all. The elections were non-partisan, the issues straightforward. It fit my middle-of-the-road pragmatism perfectly. A way to serve my community while maintaining my occupational therapy practice. Now it feels like I'm at ground zero of a culture war I never signed up to fight. And I'm learning a whole new vocabulary, written in property damage and hate.
Mesa County was never exactly progressive, but we used to know how to disagree. The mix of retirees, young families, college students, and multi-generation locals once made this place feel like a living, breathing community. Then came Covid. First the fights over school closures and remote learning, then masks and social distancing. Now it's about fear we'll require vaccinations. Each issue strips away another layer of civility, revealing something ugly underneathâ more rage, more threats, more people willing to burn their hatred into your front lawn.
I hear Dad's walker before I see himâthat distinctive squeak-thump rhythm that's been the background music of my life since he moved out here from Denver. He appears in the kitchen doorway, silver hair caught in the afternoon light, his left leg swinging slightly as he makes his way to me. The polio that struck him in 1954 left its mark on more than just his muscles. It shaped his worldview, made him the pragmatist who raised me to believe in science, in facts, in solving problems methodically. Now that same belief system has painted a target on my back.
"They must've run out of Roundup before adding 'BITCH,'" I say, trying to joke and hearing the tremor in my voice instead.
Dad reaches for his phone with his free hand, the other gripping his walker. "I'm calling Frank."
"Chief Duffy won't do anything. Just like with the sapling, the window, the letters ..." The list of unsolved incidents stretches behind us like breadcrumbs leading to this moment.
"Maybe not." Dad's broad forehead creases, the worry lines deeper than they were a month ago. "But we need a record." He retrieves his honey-sweetened green tea from the fridge, the routine of it somehow emphasizing how abnormal everything else has become. "Any ideas who?"
I tell him about the woman at school, her face contorted with rage as she screamed about indoctrination and evil agendas. "But she's just today's version. There'll be someone new tomorrow."
"We should get security cameras."
A sparrow lands on the wounded lawn, pecking at the scarred earth. "Even if we don't catch anyone, it might help us feel safer." The word 'safer' tastes bitter in my mouth.
"I'll stop by Best Buy before meeting Jack for dinner."
"Say hi to my favorite uncle." I watch Dad maneuver his walker toward the hall, his determination visible in every labored step. The post-polio syndrome that emerged twenty years ago has been stealing his strength piece by piece, but it's never touched his resolve. "Be careful out there."
"You're the one who needs to be careful, sweetie. Board meeting tonight, right?"
"Yeah." My stomach tightens at the thought.
"Courage, kiddo." He pauses, turns back. "You know ... you could resign. No one would blame you."
The suggestion hangs in the air between us. I think about Matt's face when that woman confronted him outside school, the fear that's becoming as familiar as breathing. Then I look at my fatherâthe man who taught me never to quit, who showed me how to face problems with logic and reason instead of fear. The irony burns: his pragmatic approach to solving problems, so deeply ingrained in me, is exactly what's made me a target.
The late afternoon sun throws Dad's shadow long across the floor as he turns away. Outside, those crude letters glare up at me, demanding my surrender. But I'm my father's daughter. These people want me gone? They'll have to try harder than this.
Amy, an occupational therapist, joined the school board of her sonâs school district, hoping to make a difference. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to necessitate the use of masks and social distancing in the summer of 2021, the community grows increasingly more agitated. What starts as threats of violence escalates to vandalism and physical attacks. Concerned for her son's safety but reluctant to let fear force her to resign, Amy must rely on the help of her father and uncle. Her uncle, Jack, a retired detective, uses his investigative skills to uncover a conspiracy led by political extremists intent on erasing anyone who challenges their ideologies, particularly women in positions of power.
It is hard to believe that COVID-19 became a pandemic five years ago. With measles and tension over social issues on the rise in the United States, J.T. Tierneyâs thriller is a hauntingly cautionary story of what could transpire when communities begin to reject science and lean into propaganda on a large scale. The release of this book was well-timed, bringing it to readers at a critical moment in U.S. history. I read this book shortly after Dr. Teresa Borrenpohl was violently removed from a town hall meeting in Kootenai County, Idaho, and couldnât help comparing and contrasting that event with the book.
The characters are well-developed, even those who plot against Amy and others who uphold public health policies. I found myself connecting most with Amyâs father, Tom, as he navigates his declining health while remaining determined to protect his daughter from harm. The plot is appropriately paced, and as the threats to Amyâs safety become more dire, the building tension kept me completely engrossed in the book. Extreme Malice is a political thriller that confronts many social issues relevant today, and it is an excellent option for left-leaning readers who find themselves in disbelief over the state of our nation.