Northwoods: A Novel by Amy Pease takes readers to a resort area on a lake in northern Wisconsin. When Eli North is not on duty, he spends most of his time drunk. If not for his mom being Sheriff, as well as the fact that the department is very short staffed and hardly has a budget, he would not have a job as Deputy.

If not for the job, he would not have had to go to Cabin Six to deal with a noise problem. Visitors to Beran’s Resort expect peace and quiet. The folks that spend time there will call the law quickly on others. Businesses in the local area are going under, for a variety of reasons, so tourism dollars are important. All this means that somebody from the short-staffed Sherman County Sheriff’s Department has to respond and should do so quickly. On this night, that means Deputy Eli North.

He was drinking and floating in the lake when reached by dispatch. It takes him some time to get dressed and get to the cabin. It also means he is alone when he finds the body of a young boy in the bottom of a boat tied to a dock outside of a cabin where the stereo had been far too loud. The Sherif is soon on the scene and knows the boy.

Ben Sharpe is his name. He also isn’t the only child in trouble at the lake.

What follows is a highly atmospheric and enjoyable read. Eli North is barely hanging on, in a variety of ways, and the case regarding the death of Ben and the search for another child, is both a lifeline and a danger to him. Much is going on in Northwoods: A Novel by Amy Pease.

This review barely skims the surface to avoid spoilers. It is well worth your read. My hope is that this is the first book of a series as I very much enjoyed it.

While Lesa Holstine has not read/reviewed it, I am pretty sure I first learned of the book via a comment or three about it on her weekly, What Are You Reading, blog posts. I get a lot of book recommendations that way which is why I have over 80 books from the Dallas Public Library System here at the house.

My reading copy came from the Dallas Public Library System via the OverDrive/Libby App. A wonderful thing that I can pretty much work these days thanks to extensive tutoring by Scott.

Kevin R. Tipple ©2024 ( )

I liked this a lot more than When I'm Dead, which was also set in small town Wisconsin. There are a lot of heavy topics here, a bit Long Bright River as the opioid crisis plays a huge role, and PTSD and alcoholism as a coping mechanism plague the main character. This is solid tho, great characters and topics handled with care, while keeping the mystery tight and interesting. ( )

Northwoods tells us the story of the opioid crisis at Shaky Lake, a resort lake in the Wisconsin Northwoods. It begins with a noise nuisance call that leads to the discovery of a teenage boy, Ben Sharpe, whose mother had a serious addiction to cocaine and opioids. He was found by local deputy Eli Lake, the son of the the Sheriff Marge, who was fond of Ben. They soon learn that Ben had been out on the lake with Caitlin Wallace, who is reported missing by her mother.

The investigation is manage by a force of four people, Marge and deputies Eli, Jake, and Phil. It is obvious to all of them that Eli has a drinking problem and his work suffers for it. This leads to some serious infighting within the department. Also part of the investigation is the FBI agent Alyssa who clearly knows more than she is telling.

There is another narrative that shows up periodically throughout the story. It’s the storyline of Caitlin’s father Cal. This, of course, telegraphs that the story has more to do with him than some other avenues they might be considering. He has a pretty wild adventure of his own trying to get to Shaky Lake to fill the sheriff in on what might be behind his daughter’s disappearance.

Meanwhile, they continue to investigate and discover all sorts of questionable people involved in Shaky Lake. Shaky Lake was the refuge of a Chicago Prohibition gangster and might be the refuge of today’s opioid gangsters who operate with prescriptions and factories instead of stills and tommy guns. The story ends with an exciting climax and heartbreaking betrayal and some unfinished business that makes me think there will be another story, perhaps even a series.

Northwoods may start out with a murder, but the pace at the beginning is a little slow and confusing. It sometimes feels as though there were too many characters with too much story who took us on unnecessary detours, however it tightened up after the middle of the book and raced to an exciting conclusion. Looking back, I think the seeds of other books in a series were planted. That’s a heavy burden for a first book, but it sure does make a person want to read the next one.

One of the best things about the book was its strong sense of place. I grew up on a resort lake in the Minnesota Northwoods and there were many things that reminded me of my home. There were differences, no big country club or plans for a drug rehab facility. But she managed to make me a little homesick.

My biggest criticism of the book was how she telegraphed the great betrayal. Eli may have been confused one morning, though admittedly he was hungover most mornings, but we readers can intuit what happened easily and know there’s something rotten in Shaky Lake.

There’s threads hanging all over at the end, loose ends that I expect to follow in future books. If there isn’t another in this series, I will be quite put out.

I received an e-galley of Northwoods from the publisher through NetGalley.

Northwoods at Atria | Simon & Schuster
Amy Pease author site

https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2024/01/19/northwoods-by-amy-pease/ ( )

When I started this I thought, Oh no I've read something similar and know how it turns out. But it's more complicated than that. Turned into a well written mystery with good characters dialog and plot. Looks like it will be a series. Great escape! ( )

Set in the small vacation town of Shaky Lake - a vacationer’s paradise for the wealthy with its posh country club and vacation homes - in Wisconsin’s Northwoods, the story begins with the discovery of a teenager’s body in a fishing boat docked in the lake behind a cabin in a local resort. The dead teenager, Ben Sharpe was supposed to be meeting his friend sixteen-year-old Caitlin Wallace, who is missing. Sherman County Sheriff Marge North heads local law enforcement, an understaffed and underfunded institution in a town dealing with the fallout of the opioid epidemic, with bare minimum resources. Her son Eli, who works as a deputy, was the one who found Ben’s body. FBI Agent Alyssa Mason joins Eli and Marge in their search for Caitlin for Caitlin, though she might know more about the case than she initially reveals. Caitlin’s father, a pharmaceutical sales professional, was supposed to join his family in Shaky Lake but stayed back in Chicago and is also proving difficult to trace. What follows is a complex web of murder, kidnapping, greed, crime and much more, revealing a darker side to the lakeside resort town. Eli, Marge, and Alyssa must race to find the killer and locate the missing teenager before it is too late.

Eli was an investigator with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service before he served in Afghanistan , joining local law enforcement after he returned from his deployment. Battling severe PTSD for which he is reluctant to seek help, his dependency on alcohol contributed to his failing marriage though he deeply cares for his soon-to-be ex-wife and eleven-year-old son. His mother’s position has helped him secure and keep his present job. As the story progresses, we also follow Eli’s journey as he battles his personal demons while trying to find a killer and locate the missing teenager.

With a cast of interesting characters, a dark and suspenseful vibe and a solid mystery at its core, Northwoods by Amy Pease is a gripping thriller/ police procedural that touches upon several important issues such as PTSD, alcoholism, mental health, substance abuse and the opioid crisis. Needless to say, this is not an easy read, but I was completely immersed in the story and thought that the plot was well structured and consistently paced. I must mention that the author has succeeded in striking a perfect balance between the plot-driven, primary murder mystery/procedural aspect and the character-driven aspects detailing the characters’ personal struggles, which is quite impressive given that this is the author’s debut novel. Though we do get a resolution to the murder mystery, the ending indicates there is much more to this story and I’ll be eagerly waiting for the follow-up installment.

Many thanks to Atria Books for the digital review copy via NetGalley. All opinions expressed in this review are my own. ( )