'65560' explores the haunting impact of small-town secrets

In the quiet, tight-knit town of Salem, Missouri, the peaceful façade is shattered by a string of brutal murders. Four estranged childhood friends—now a farmer, a preacher, a hermit, and the town sheriff—are pulled back into a shared trauma from their high school days. As the body count rises and suspicion turns inward, they must confront the betrayals that tore them apart before the killer finishes a vengeful plan twenty-five years in the making.

“The book is much more than a whodunit,” Benton says. “If I’ve done my job well as a storyteller, then Salem serves as archetype for society in a much broader way. Exploring themes like loyalty, division, insiders, outsiders, secrets, and trauma--these are things we are all wrestling with in the current cultural moment.”

Benton is a 1999 graduate of Salem High School and says his first work of fiction had to be set in a place he knew intimately.

“I wanted to write a book that felt unmistakably like home. The backroads, the Friday-night lights, the way we take care of our own,” Benton said. “But I also wanted to explore how the places we love can hold pain and secrets that shape us long after childhood ends. Salem means peace. And yet, as we all know, peace isn’t always the whole story.”

Benton served for several years as a pastor and currently helps lead an anti-human trafficking nonprofit in Houston, Texas.

Books will be available for purchase at the event. 65560 will be available in print and Kindle editions on Amazon Dec. 15. Benton can be reached for further comment at titus.j.benton@gmail.com.