by Giles Blunt
First published 2003
Ivan Bergeron's dog drags home a grisly discovery: a human arm, chewed and mangled. In Algonquin Bay, a freak warm spell has awakened bears early from hibernation, and everyone assumes the worst. Bears killed someone in the woods. Detective John Cardinal and his partner Lise Delorme investigate what should be a straightforward case of wildlife attack. Then the coroner delivers bad news. The victim died before the bears found him. Days later, a second body turns up. A woman, apparently sexually assaulted, abandoned in the same wooded area. Two murders so close together cannot be coincidence. Cardinal and Delorme dig deeper and uncover a decades-old cold case with identical details. A woman found dead in the woods thirty years ago, seemingly raped, her killer never caught. The trail leads back to Quebec terrorists and political violence from another era. The evidence connects the cases, but logic and proof are different things. Somewhere in Algonquin Bay, a killer moves freely, protected by time, power, and intelligence.
Genres: mystery, crime, thriller, detective
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, suspenseful
Tropes: cat-and-mouse, cold-case, police-partnership
Setting: Algonquin Bay, Quebec
Period: 1980s, present-day
320 pages · Hardcover · A Marian Wood Book/Putnam
Content warnings: death, graphic-violence, murder