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This story opens with the body of a college student hanging from a tree on a deserted bay in Lake Superior, Misery Bay. Months later the heartbroken father, a retired marshal, begs his friend, the Chief of Police of Sault Ste. Marie, Roy Maven, to help him find out why his son killed himself. Maven goes to P.I. Alex McKnight. The two have been adversaries in the past but work as a team on this case. Alex is reluctant to get involved until the boy's father is found dead in Maven's kitchen. Then both men begin to question the verdict of suicide They find some very alarming and unsettling things which bring in the FBI as well as the State Police. This is an engrossing and baffling story as the reader follows McKnight and Maven through northern Michigan following the clues that will eventually lead them to the killer. It is not until the two discover his identity that the reader knows it as well. The puzzle is well constructed and the chase leads to a very exciting book. Hamilton does a fine job of plotting the story. He catches the reader's attention immediately and then provides clues and red herrings and wrong turnings aplenty. But he is fair to the reader who gets the clues as soon as McKnight and Naven get them. Alex McKnight is the protagonist of a series of books and readers who have followed the series know his character quite well. But those picking this up for the first time will get to understand him. He is a loner, in many respects, restoring some cabins for tourists that he and his father had built and living in one of them. He was a policeman in Detroit where he was shot and retired on two-thirds of his salary. He has a PI license but is reluctant to use it. In the past he and Chief Maven have clashed and neither of them can quite believe they are working together. Maven is gruff and quick to anger, but a good chief of police. We learn enough of the victims to feel genuine sympathy for them and enough of the villains to understand why they acted without approving their actions. One of the wonderful things about this book is the picture of the northern part of Michigan in April. It is still very cold and there is snow on the ground although it will soon begin to melt. It is a stark climate delineated by two great lakes. The two peninsulas are connected by Mackinac Bridge, the third longest suspension bridge in the world. It is so long that it sways when it is windy and cars have actually been blown off it. The bridge and the lakes form a backdrop to the thermal drama being played out before them. McKnight often asks himself why he lives there, but he knows how much he loves the area. The reader has the great pleasure of visiting this land vicariously, experiencing the cold and loneliness, and seeing two very good and believable detectives unravel a mystifying and perplexing puzzle. It is even more absorbing to listen to this as it is read by Dan John Miller who brings to the listener all the nuances of the story and the characters and makes it realistic and believable. § Sally Fellows is a retired history teacher with an MA in history and an avid reader of mysteries.
Reviewed by Sally A. Fellows, June 2011
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