Trying to recover from the tragic death of his wife and daughter, former Chicago homicide detective Dave Cubiak takes a job as a park ranger on Wisconsin’s picturesque Door County peninsula. Before long, however, a suspicious death in the park rouses his dormant investigative skills. When other bodies begin turning up, and he is asked to downplay these “accidents” to ensure that the town’s important summer festival is not interrupted, Cubiak must tread a thin line between pleasing his superiors and investigating the situation.

As he gets to know the residents of the town, including their backgrounds and hidden agendas, he realizes that there are a variety of suspects and possible motives and that more killings may be imminent. Not only that, but the local sheriff is a dolt—and may even be a suspect himself. This is an unusual police procedural in that the protagonist is no longer a police officer but has the crime-solving skills although he must do most of his investigating sub rosa.

I liked the small-town feel of this novel as well as the vivid descriptions of a beautiful area of the country with which I was not previously familiar. The characters are well drawn, the dialogue realistic, and the puzzle is a difficult one to solve, with suspicion continually shifting as more evidence is uncovered.

This is an impressive first novel by a former staff writer for Reader’s Digest, who specialized in medical and human interest stories.