Death at Gills Rock: A Dave Cubiak Door County Mystery

Angst-laden former Chicago homicide detective Dave Cubiak uncovers long-buried secrets in this quietly memorable regional police procedural, the sequel to 2014’s Death Stalks Door County. Now the sheriff of Door County, which occupies the peninsula between Green Bay and Lake Michigan, Cubiak is bothered by inconsistent details at the scene where three prominent locals, heroes from WWII, have died in an apparent accident in isolated Gills Rock, “a blip of a town at the tip of the peninsula.” Cubiak studies the people involved more than the physical evidence, peeling back decades of deception by the dead men; their “heroism” may have hidden a wartime murder, and they have injured many people since then. He eventually arrives at a solution that may not be legally proper but serves justice. Skalka write with unusually rich detail about her story’s setting and with unflinching empathy for her characters. (June)