home grown is the 16th book in the Garth Ryland mystery series that has taken him from the graves of Navoe Cemetery to the wilds of Mitchell's Woods to the cave of Matotamah to the edge of Wampler's Pit, and in and out of the arms of some of Oakalla's most beautiful, intriguing, and dangerous women. Called "an exemplary series hero" by Publishers Weekly, Ryland lives and works in the small town of Oakalla, Wisconsin ("Lake Woebegone made sinister") where passions run high and secrets go deep, and nothing is ever quite as simple as it seems-where every thread runs at seemingly loose ends to a knot of deception and death. John Borden, an amiable misfit known to most of the locals as "Chilly Willy," is missing. He left on foot for his night job at the hospital, but never arrived. Town marshal, Cecil Hardwick, is on his way out of town to a convention at the very moment former FBI agent, Chuck Holden, arrives unannounced in Ryland's newspaper office with the information that an assassin, code name "Punisher," is likely living there in Oakalla. Holden has been after him for years, and now in retirement has made it his mission to bring him to justice.
Ryland's search for John Borden first takes him to Robert Pickering's house, where Borden has been living in the basement for the past few years and where Pickering is in the last stages of emphysema. Ryland next visits Jake McKennis, a bear of a man with a short fuse and a dislike of Borden, and whose son, Ronny, is Borden's best friend. From there Ryland goes to Adams County Hospital and has an altercation with Lynn Saylor, a journeyman nurse with a hulking presence and a suspect past. Then the crank calls start at work and at home. Then Ronny McKennis runs away from home to a place that only Ryland, at his peril, knows. Then Lynn Saylor and Chuck Holden hurriedly leave town, but not before Ryland learns something about each that will put him in harm's way, and not before he takes what might be the last ride of his life. In Home Grown, Ryland's search for truth again leads him and his housekeeper, Ruth, down converging paths that each would rather not travel, but are helpless to alter, until they intersect at a place perilously close to the heart.