PRESQUE ISLE - If you judge this book by its cover, you can guess that it's a mystery thriller set in the Northwoods.

Presque Isle's Kevin McCullough is a DNR forester by day.

But he's a fiction author by night.

"For Sauter, the whole eerie scene was more than he could bear. He wanted to go and comfort the child, but his temples were rocked by a mad pounding. Once again, he felt his eyes squeezing shut and his fists squeezing into balls," McCullough reads, a passage from his book.

That sets the tone for McCullough, writing under the pen name K.R. Mack.

"Treehouse" is the first book he's published.

"It's set in a fictional town in northern Wisconsin, so people recognize some of the backgrounds and some of the characters even though they're fictional," McCullough says.

The book follows a Northwoods detective's investigation of a string of children found hanged under a treehouse.

We won't give away the end, but will tell you it turns into a fast-paced mystery thriller.

Besides just the writing, McCullough had to teach himself to be his own publisher.

"It was a long, lengthy process. The challenge is defintely there, because there's nobody else to blame anything on when it goes wrong. It's all on your lap," he says.

"Treehouse" is available in both paperback and as an e-book.

Follow the links below to read the first chapters and buy the book.

Related Weblinks:
"Treehouse" Paperback Edition
"Treehouse" E-book

Story By: Ben Meyer