I’ve mentioned before how much I like an unusual setting, and I thoroughly enjoyed the stories in Joseph Heywood’s Hard Ground: Woods Cop Stories. They take place on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and it’s a bit of a different world up there. Heywood knows it very well because he’s spent a lot of time (12 years) on patrol with conservation officers. The experience and his observations show themselves in all the tales told here. Heywood insists in his “Author’s Note” that they’re all fictional accounts, and I’m willing to believe him. However every one of them has a strong whiff of truth and seems grounded in solid reality. Some are funny, some are hardboiled, and all are great entertainment for anybody who likes unique characters and out-of-the-way locations. There are car crashes, airplane rides, Elvis impersonators, poachers, and even the occasional ghost. For fans of his regular series, Heywood also includes two longer stories, one each about Lupe Bapcat and Grady Service.