by Kim Harrison
First published 2011
Detective Sunderson faces retirement in Michigan's Upper Peninsula when a peculiar cult establishes itself nearby. The group's self-appointed leader initially appears to be nothing more than an eccentric figure, but Sunderson decides to investigate. Working alongside a sixteen-year-old companion, the detective discovers that this so-called Great Leader possesses far more cunning and malevolence than his harmless facade suggests. Fresh from divorce and battling his own relationship with alcohol, Sunderson pursues his target from Michigan's forests to an Arizona border town teeming with criminals, then onward to Nebraska where new followers have assembled to worship the leader's dubious teachings. Yet as Sunderson chases this dangerous quarry across the American landscape, his own personal struggles follow close behind. The detective must confront not only an increasingly clever adversary but also his advancing age, romantic failures, and the shadow side of his own character.
Genres: mystery, crime, thriller, detective
Vibes: dark, emotional, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, fish-out-of-water, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Arizona, Michigan, Nebraska, Upper Peninsula
Period: 21st-century
329 pages · Hardcover · Grove Press
Content warnings: alcohol-abuse, depression, mental-illness