Eight stars
I was so pleased to have discovered this police procedural series by Kelley Armstrong. Not known solely for her thrillers, Armstrong takes the reader on quite the journey into the outback of northern Canada. In a small community, someone is lurking and kidnapping residents, storing them away in caves for long periods of time. As the local sheriff and his detective try to make sense of it all, the race is on for an outsider in front of everyone. Armstrong does a great job with this piece, keeping me wanting to know more,
After Casey Duncan agreed to disappear to protect her from a number of people trying to kill her, she found herself allocated to the small community of Rockton, a collection of two hundred in Canada’s Yukon Territory. Working as the police detective, “Casey Butler” and the local sheriff, Eric Dalton, try to keep the peace, though there is a great deal of unrest, even in this small collective.
When a local resident is found in a blizzard, her disappearance take a backseat to helping her from dying. Casey and the sheriff’s deputy locate her and bring Nicole to safety. They discover that she’s been in a cave for the past year and that someone had been keeping her alive, though the description is too vague to finger the culprit. Casey tries to make sense of it all, until Sheriff Dalton returns to maintain order.
Looking for a killer, the suspect list is small, though there are many who live on the outskirts. In the forest, many live who would love to rock the boat. After two more bodies disappear and some bodies have been located in the local caves, Casey and Sheriff Dalton try to decipher what’s been going on and what that might mean for the future. With people coming from a variety of past issues, there are many skeletons waiting to be unleashed. Before more die, someone will have to be fingered for the crime and a killer will need to admit where the others might be, though the terrain is vast and the temperatures keep dropping. Armstrong does well keeping the story moving and the reader hooked!
Kelley Armstrong caught my attention and pulled me along from the opening pages of the debut novel. Exploring a little more about Casey and her situation, Armstrong is able to fashion a number of other backstories of the locals, weaving them into the middle of this great narrative. While vast and isolated, there is a lot going on in Rockton and the Yukon Territory is a perfect location. The story builds with both tension and mystery, adding depth as the momentum keeps the reader wanting to know more before all is lost. Characters emerge and present themselves for inspection, but there are many faces that remain a mystery to the reader, which Armstrong will be tasked to identify in time.
The story works well with its plot points and developments. Armstrong works at keeping the tension high as the story advances in a variety of directions. While keeping the cast of characters small, the undercurrents are multiplied when outsiders in the forest emerge, creating twists that could not have been foreseen. The reader is treated to so much and I am pleased to see that the next book awaits me, allowing me to keep learning more about this addictive series.
Kudos, Madam Armstrong, for keeping Canada front and centre in this piece.
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