Hard Aground: A Lewis Cole Mystery

Unpretentious but thoroughly satisfying, DuBois’s 11th Lewis Cole mystery (after 2016’s Storm Cell) does a lot within its limited scope. Despite being basically confined to his Tyler Beach, N.H., house after surgery, Cole can’t escape disturbing pressures from the world outside: an elderly antiques dealer’s shotgun slaying, his shady pal Felix Tinios’s pursuit of missing antique silver, and the opioid epidemic’s corrupting influence on Tyler Beach. He also gets bothersome news bulletins from his current lover, reporter Paula Quinn, and from his local police detective friend, Diane Woods. Mean- while, he’s bedeviled by an overbearing couple who want to tour his house—and by the inconvenient ghost of his one true love, “long-dead and long-missing Cissy Manning,” with whom he converses in his dreams. And, to top it off, the tumors that were removed from his back have gone astray en route to the lab that was to test whether they were cancerous or not. Somehow, DuBois fits all this into a tight, lively package that’s the epitome of superior storytelling. (Apr.)