Northwoods

Nurse practitioner Pease’s outstanding debut centers on Eli North, a military veteran and former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service investigator whose life was severely disrupted by his tour of duty in Afghanistan. North’s physical and psychic wounds were compounded by the elimination of his Fish and Wildlife job and the dissolution of his marriage when he returned to the U.S., which drove him to heavy drinking. Before things got too bleak, North’s mother, Marge, the sheriff of Sherman County, Wis., pulled North back from the brink and hired him as her deputy. When North responds to a noise complaint from a family staying in a lakeside cabin, he finds the body of young Ben Sharpe in a fishing boat tied to the dock. The mystery of the boy’s death is complicated by Marge’s cover-up of Ben’s mother’s drug use during the murder investigation and the subsequent disappearance of one of his friends, which leads to the FBI’s involvement. North hopes that solving the case will help restore his self-esteem and confidence, but he faces a thicket of drug deals and small town secrets that threaten to take him down before he gets to the truth. Pease’s sharp dialogue and well-rounded characters enrich the core mystery with an authentic representation of the everyday struggles of small-town Americans. Admirers of Eli Cranor will eagerly await more from this gifted writer. (Jan.)