Bitterfrost
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
"Viceral, vivid, and suspenseful"—Meg Gardiner, #1 New York Times bestselling author
"The atmosphere of a northern Michigan small town is expertly detailed . . . Baker’s trial is informed and tense, with a knowledge and surety usually found in an engrossing legal thriller"—The Washington Post
"Slick as ice and just as chilling"—Tessa Wegert, author of In The Bones
The first in a brand-new crime thriller series from Edgar nominee and Pulitzer Prize–winning author Bryan Gruley. Feisty defence attorney Devyn Payne faces off against veteran detective Garth Klimmek as they work to solve a vicious double homicide in their small, icy town of Bitterfrost.
Thirteen years ago, former ice hockey star Jimmy Baker quit the game after almost killing an opponent. Now, as the Zamboni driver for the amateur team in his hometown of Bitterfrost, Michigan, he’s living his penance. Until the morning he awakens to the smell of blood . . .
Jimmy soon finds himself arrested for a brutal double murder. The kicker? He has no memory of the night in question. And as the evidence racks up against him, Jimmy’s case is skating on thin ice. Could he have committed such a gruesome crime?
As his defense attorney Devyn Payne and prosecuting detective Garth Klimmek race to uncover the truth, time is running out for Jimmy. Because all he can really be sure of is that he is capable of taking a life. The question is, in his blacked-out state, did he take two?
This gritty drama is the first in the Bitterfrost series, perfect for fans of Dennis Lehane!
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Gruley (the Bleak Harbor novels) launches a promising new mystery series with this tense tale of murder in small-town Michigan. Jimmy Baker's minor league hockey career ended 13 years ago when he almost killed another player during a fight on the ice. Ever since, he's scraped together a living as the Zamboni driver at his local rink in Bitterfrost, Mich. One morning, Jimmy awakes on his kitchen floor with his hands and clothes covered in blood and rust and with no memory of the night before. Soon, he learns that witnesses and forensic evidence have linked him to a double murder that took place in the hours he can't remember. Given his violent reputation, the Bitterfrost rumor mill starts up, and a desperate Jimmy turns to his friend, Devyn Payne, a former big-shot attorney who's left her Detroit firm to "fend for murderers and drug addicts and drunk drivers and wife beaters" in Bitterfrost. As she pieces together Jimmy's defense, Devyn investigates the murders on her own, putting herself directly in harm's way. Gruley buttresses the book's sleek procedural elements with a textured, lived-in setting, granting even minor characters a surprising amount of dimension. It's an auspicious opening act.
