A Gift Before Dying
A Novel
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3.4 • 8 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
“Hypnotically good—instantly immersive, intense, and ultimately inspiring.”—Lee Child, New York Times bestselling author of the Jack Reacher series
In a hauntingly atmospheric novel set against the unforgiving landscape of the Arctic Circle, a disgraced police investigator discovers that his path to redemption is paved with ice—and blood.
"Kempt, who worked as a criminal lawyer in the Arctic for almost two decades, conjures this forbidding landscape and its residents with artful authority.”—The Wall Street Journal
After a botched high-profile murder investigation, Corporal Elderick Cole is exiled to the remote, rugged landscape of Nunavut, a vast territory in the Arctic Circle known for its untamed beauty, frigid temperatures, and endless winter nights. With his family having severed all ties, Cole waits out the result of a civil lawsuit alone—the wrong verdict could end what’s left of his flailing career.
His bleak existence takes a sinister turn when he discovers the hanging body of Pitseolala, a troubled Inuit girl whom he had sworn to protect. Her death dredges up demons he thought he’d buried along with the scars of a fractured marriage and the aching divide between him and his estranged daughter.
As Cole’s life unravels—and with it, the fragile thread of his investigation, he turns to Pitseolala’s younger brother, Maliktu, a fellow outsider. It’s then that Cole uncovers what binds them—a singular mission to find her killer.
Against fierce backlash, Cole’s overriding desire to redeem just one aspect of his otherwise failed life becomes an obsession—and he’s willing to break every rule in his unyielding pursuit of justice and the smallest shred of redemption.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This stunning debut from criminal lawyer Kempt finds Sgt. Elderick Cole exiled to the remote Arctic hamlet of Cape Dorset after making critical mistakes in a sensitive murder case on the Canadian mainland. Estranged from his ex-wife and daughter, Cole waits for the outcome of a civil lawsuit that will decide his fate back home. Having grown up in Newfoundland, the policeman is no stranger to harsh conditions, but even he is ill-prepared for the severe cold and relentless darkness of an Arctic winter. As the novel opens, Cole discovers the body of a young Inuit girl named Pitseolala he'd been trying to shield from the harsh social conditions of the Arctic, including rampant substance abuse and high suicide rates. Though it appears Pitseolala died by hanging herself, Cole suspects otherwise, as does the girl's 10-year-old brother, Maliktu, who says he's being visited by Pitseolala's ghost. As Cole investigates—against the wishes of fellow officer Veronica Aningmiug and many community members—the case takes a major toll on his physical and mental health, offering uncomfortable parallels to his home life as he becomes obsessed with making things right. From the opening pages, Kempt's remarkably assured narrative evokes a mythic atmosphere, and the author, who spent years living in the Arctic, infuses his haunting tale with vivid sensory details that bring the frigid landscape to life. It's a knockout.
