Thomas Maltman is the author of four novels: Ashes to Ashes (2025), The Land (2020), Little Wolves (2012), and The Night Birds (2008). These novels are featured below:

Ashes to Ashes

Small-town Minnesota teenager Basil “The Brute” Thorson—a shy, reluctant wrestling star and “special” tracked into special education classes—vows to make his family whole again in the wake of multiple tragedies, during a year in which his community is roiled by strange religious and mythological events.

Another perceptive and empathetic novel from the author of Indie Next and All Iowa Reads selection Little Wolves, blending myth, history, and religion with a nuanced look at contemporary rural life, perfect for fans of Marilynne Robinson, Richard Russo, and Paul Harding.

In the prairie town of Andwhen, Minnesota, members of a small congregation don’t know if they’ve been blessed or cursed when the ashes administered during an Ash Wednesday service won’t wash off. This event leads Basil, a “gentle giant” of a teen, to make a secret vow to save his family through prayer and fasting. His family is in a difficult place, stricken by a recent farming accident and his mother’s decade-long confinement to a state mental hospital. Basil keeps his struggles secret from his two friends, Lukas and Morgan (they self-identify as “a gay, a goth, and a giant”). When the trio discovers what may be the centuries-old remains of a Viking explorer in a local meadow, the find brings its own complications, as folk history clashes with the agendas of online racists. Meanwhile, Basil’s unrelenting commitment to fasting unravels his sense of reality, putting himself and his family in danger.

Ashes to Ashes moves between characters and perspectives, exploring the stories we tell about family, community, and our larger histories, blending elements of Norse saga with a fine-grained examination of rural Midwestern life at the start of the pandemic. A feat of narrative daring and luminous empathy, this is Thomas Maltman at his most inventive and compassionate.

“Thomas Maltman’s poignant Ashes to Ashes is far and away the best novel I’ve read this year. Compassionate and lyrically written, it’s a story about mysteries, those of the past and the present, as well as the eternal mysteries of the human heart. I fell in love with this book from the very first page. I guarantee you will too.”
—William Kent Krueger, author of This Tender Land

The Land

“When beautiful Maura goes missing, 21-year-old Lucien, with whom she has been having an affair, goes in search of her. His quest leads him to the Rose of Sharon, a white-supremacist church where Maura’s husband, Eli, is the assistant pastor. Keeping his identity secret, Lucien—hoping to discover Maura’s whereabouts—ingratiates himself with the leaders of the church, including Mother Sophie, its blind founder who miraculously cures him of his migraines. It’s the winter of 1999, and Y2K looms, promising—so the Rose of Sharon’s white-supremacist congregation believes—the apocalypse. In the meantime, Lucien, a computer nerd, is developing a computer game called The Land, which coincidentally (not!) is the name of the supremacist camp. What are the hate-filled Rose of Sharon leaders planning? Maltman’s very dark novel deals dramatically with considerations of good and evil, of angels and demons, creating a visceral sense of danger, for Lucien’s life will be at risk if his identity and his relationship with Maura are discovered. Metaphysics and mystery merge in this haunting, thought-provoking story.”

–Michael Cart, writing for Booklist

“Thomas Maltman’s The Land is a gift to readers longing for a tale of lost love, fringe prophets, souls in cold suspension, and ravens that darken the skies of a Northern winter. Set against looming apocalypse and the clicking of a projector showing classic films, The Land is generous, intricate, and propulsive. It has a kind heart and a tear in its eye, and I enjoyed it completely.”
—Leif Enger, author of Peace Like a River

Little Wolves

Great news!  Little Wolves has been selected for the All Iowa Reads program and will be read in communities across the state in 2014! See more here by clicking this hyperlink.  A finalist for the Minnesota Book Award, Little Wolves was also named a favorite mystery of 2013 by the Milwaukie Journal Sentinel, and School Library Journal called it one of the best adult books for teens in 2013, describing the novel as “dark, brooding…and beautifully written.”  Please see the Book Clubs & Media page for the latest updates, including a starred review from Library Journal, a lovely review in the Star Tribune, and a book club guide.

“Little Wolves weaves the lives of a father, a son, a pastor’s wife, and a community in this compelling mystery of murder and secrets.  His brilliant use of historical and mythical elements are combined with everyday life in ways that are hair-raising and true.  Maltman has a gift for framing unforgettable characters. Everything about this book asks us to examine life more closely.”
—Elizabeth Cox, Author of The Slow Moon

The Night Birds

From Publishers Weekly:

Starred Review. Set in the 1860s and ’70s, Maltman’s superb debut evokes a Midwest lacerated by clashes between European and Native American, slaveowner and abolitionist, killer and healer, nature and culture. Asa Senger, a lonely 14-year-old boy, is at first wary when his father’s sister, Hazel, arrives at his parents’ Minnesota home after a long stay in a faraway asylum, but he comes to cherish the mysterious Hazel’s warmth and company. Through her stories, Asa learns of his family’s bitter past: the lore and dreams of their German forebears, their place in the bitter divide over slavery and, most complex of all, the bond between Hazel and the Dakotan warrior Wanikiya that deepens despite the violence between their peoples. Maltman excels at giving even his most harrowing scenes an understated realism and at painting characters who are richly, sometimes disturbingly, human. The novel sustains its tension right to the moment it ends with an adult Asa at peace with his own complicated heritage—a tentative redemption that, the book’s events as well as our own world’s disorders suggest, is the best for which the human heart can hope.
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