Rag and Bone: A Jay Porter Novel

After almost a year on the run as a murder suspect, Jay Clifford returns home to Ashton, N.H., in Clifford’s impressive fifth crime novel featuring the unlikely investigator and former estate clearer (after 2018’s Broken Ground). When Jay visits the Ashton PD, he’s relieved to hear that the real killers of Owen Easton, a rival in the estate clearing business, have been identified, allowing him to reconnect with his ex-wife, Jenny, and their seven-year-old son, Aiden. Financially strapped and still viewed with suspicion by his neighbors, Jay accepts an offer to do odd jobs from an acquaintance with whom he’s smitten, Alison Rodgers, who used to run a rehab clinic, after he learns she’s divorced. Besides repairing a fence and other physically demanding work, Jay must figure out who is harassing Alison with such acts as leaving a coyote with its throat slit on her property. Clifford makes his lead’s complex backstory accessible for newcomers and doesn’t shy from having him engage in bad behavior, including assaulting Jenny’s new husband in front of Aiden. Steve Ulfelder’s fans will be pleased. Agent: Elizabeth Kracht, Kimberly Cameron & Assoc. (June)