Northwoods
A Novel
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- €15.99
Publisher Description
“Riveting.” —People
In this “compelling and heartbreaking debut that marks a new and important voice in the mystery genre” (William Kent Krueger), a murder with ties to America’s opioid epidemic reveals the dark underbelly of an idyllic Midwestern resort town.
Eli North is not okay.
His drinking is getting worse by the day, his emotional wounds after a deployment to Afghanistan are as raw as ever, his marriage and career are over, and the only job he can hold down is with the local sheriff’s department. And that’s only because the sheriff is his mother—and she’s overwhelmed with small town Shaky Lake’s dwindling budget and the fallout from the opioid epidemic.
The Northwoods of Wisconsin may be a vacationer’s paradise, but amidst the fishing trips, campfires, and Paul Bunyan festivals, something sinister is taking shape. When the body of a teenage boy is found in the lake, it sets in motion an investigation that leads Eli to a wealthy enclave with a violent past, a pharmaceutical salesman, and a missing teenage girl. Soon, Eli and his mother, along with a young FBI agent, are on the hunt for more than just a killer in this thriller that is “not to be missed” (Mindy Mejia, USA TODAY bestselling author).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Nurse practitioner Pease's outstanding debut centers on Eli North, a military veteran and former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service investigator whose life was severely disrupted by his tour of duty in Afghanistan. North's physical and psychic wounds were compounded by the elimination of his Fish and Wildlife job and the dissolution of his marriage when he returned to the U.S., which drove him to heavy drinking. Before things got too bleak, North's mother, Marge, the sheriff of Sherman County, Wis., pulled North back from the brink and hired him as her deputy. When North responds to a noise complaint from a family staying in a lakeside cabin, he finds the body of young Ben Sharpe in a fishing boat tied to the dock. The mystery of the boy's death is complicated by Marge's cover-up of Ben's mother's drug use during the murder investigation and the subsequent disappearance of one of his friends, which leads to the FBI's involvement. North hopes that solving the case will help restore his self-esteem and confidence, but he faces a thicket of drug deals and small town secrets that threaten to take him down before he gets to the truth. Pease's sharp dialogue and well-rounded characters enrich the core mystery with an authentic representation of the everyday struggles of small-town Americans. Admirers of Eli Cranor will eagerly await more from this gifted writer.
