We Can’t Save You: A Tale of Politics, Murder, and Maine

Ryan Tapia gets entangled with a protest movement in Ricks’s so-so second thriller featuring the Maine FBI agent (after Everyone Knows but You). Ryan’s lover, Solidarity Harrison, harbors ambitions to be Maine’s next governor, but her advisers warn her that a romance with a federal agent is an electoral liability, leading her to end their relationship. A brokenhearted Ryan gets a second blow when he learns that his new supervisor is the Bureau’s most notorious screwup. As he adjusts to both changes, Ryan looks into a bizarre murder case: a corpse has been dumped in the Gulf of Maine with a yellow wig nailed to its skull. Agents suspect the crime’s connected to a Native American–led climate change protest movement, which has elicited a hostile response from the U.S. president and is poised to play a major role in Maine’s upcoming elections. As Ryan digs deeper into the murder, he grows increasingly sympathetic to the protestors’ cause, leading him to a crisis of conscience as the government tries to quash the movement. While Ricks nimbly weaves together elements of political thriller, whodunit, and domestic drama, his characterizations are disappointingly generic. This fails to leave a mark. Agent: Andrew Wylie, Wylie Agency. (June)