The Civil Wars of Jonah Moran

The smoky scent of the past lingers in this confident second novel, set on Washington's Olympic Peninsula and infused with the deep-forest spirit of the Pacific Northwest. Returning to the logging town of Misp after her failed marriage, 30ish Jessica Moran, the daughter of a mill owner, starts a window-cleaning company and devotes herself to her brother Jonah, a gentle misfit afflicted with Asperger's syndrome (an disease like autism) and obsessed with the Civil War. If it weren't for Jonah, Jessica might never communicate with her formidable mother, Lila, who is now head of the family business, since she is convinced that Lila was responsible for Jessica's father's death by drowning nearly 20 years before. Only after a fire consumes Misp's new halfway house for Seattle convicts, leaving evidence of Jonah's presence at the scene, is the smoldering legacy of that long-ago summer fully reawakened. The investigator for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is none other than Quinault Indian lawyer Callum Luke, Jessica's childhood sweetheart, and as Jessica and Callum look for the cause of the fire, they revisit the fraught period after Jessica's father's death and the sudden ending of their relationship. Their fears, the town's bigotry, the truths they did not wish to face are all aired as the current crime is solved. Reynolds (The Starlite Drive-in) once again proves herself a sure-handed storyteller, alternating Jessica's coming-of-age memories with the criminal investigation and unraveling the Moran family's painful history in deft measures. But her prose really soars when she describes the timberland--a tent in the woods, the bottom of an overgrown lake, a drive over remote roads during a storm--capturing the almost magical spiritual connection between people and the land. Agent, Angela Rinaldi. Regional author tour. (Nov.)