Death Stalks Door County: A Dave Cubiak Door County Mystery

The wilderness of Door County, Wis., “the Midwest’s magnificent answer to Cape Cod,” provides the backdrop for Skalka’s tight, lyrical first novel. Homicide detective Dave Cubiak, in drunken despair after the accidental deaths of his wife and daughter, flees Chicago for Door County, where he becomes a park ranger. Just before the Fourth of July Festival, six people die in quick succession. J. Dugan Beck, head of the Peninsula State Park citizens advisory board, is bent on keeping things quiet so as not to jeopardize the summer tourist trade; he pressures the reluctant Cubiak to dig into the deep-seated personal enmities that seethe beneath the surface of the long-standing debate between those who favor conservation and those who prefer development. To the author’s credit, Skalka matches the untamed nature of the peninsula to the roughness of its inhabitants rather than contrasting its natural beauty to human violence. [em](May) [/em]