Mortal Fall

National Park Service police officer Monty Harris, the narrator of Carbo’s compulsively readable second novel of suspense set in Montana’s Glacier National Park (after 2015’s The Wild Inside), suspects the fatal fall that biologist Paul “Wolfie” Sedgewick took over a cliff was no accident. One of the leading members of the Wolverine Research Team, Paul was an experienced hiker who knew the terrain well. When Monty, who admits he has an “overzealous affection for order,” investigates, he learns that Paul’s studies of the park’s wolverine population made the biologist some enemies. Carbo does a good job of balancing Monty’s emotional anxieties connected with the long-ago disappearance of a childhood friend, Nathan Faraway, with sweeping descriptions of Glacier’s grandeur. The parade of new cast members, though distracting at times, never slows Monty’s steady pace toward uncovering the truth. Readers may feel one step ahead of Monty up to the climax, when the more satisfying revelations relate to the park officer’s personal life. [em]Agent: Nancy Yost, Nancy Yost Literary Agency. (May) [/em]