"Misery Bay" by Steve Hamilton: Book Review

"Misery Bay" by Steve Hamilton
Thomas Dunne/St. Martin's, 294 pp., $24.99
Reviewed by David Marshall James

When many people think of Paradise, they look up.

For ex-cop Alex McKnight, Paradise is on the UP.

As in, "Upper Peninsula" of Michigan; as in, a small town called Paradise.

It's all about the weather up there, with ice and snow and lots of it, even into April, when much of this story transpires.

Actually, it begins right after New Year's, with the apparent suicide of a Michigan Tech student at the titular locale.

The young man's father, a U.S. marshal, happens to be a close friend (from their days with the Michigan State Police) of Roy Maven, chief of police in the Soo.

That's what the locals call Sault Ste. Marie, about an hour's drive (as Alex takes it, and that's fast) from Paradise.

They may reside on the UP, but relations between Alex and the Chief have been decidedly down.

Well, everyone in the Soo-- and even beyond its borders-- who has encountered/heard about him pretty much agrees that Chief Maven is a B.A. As in "Big Azzwhole," not "Bad Azz." Then again, he's much of the latter, too.

Much like the opening of a dark tale told on a long winter's night, Chief Maven breaks the fireside comfort of Jackie Connery's pub in Paradise, the wind blasting the snow in behind him, at the front door.

Jackie's is Alex's principal retreat, where he takes all his meals when he's not on the road. The publican rewards him with a crusty attitude and bottles of "real" Molson's, brought across the border from Canada.

The Chief wants Alex to exercise that P.I. license that he's loath to use, by nosing around in the Misery Bay suicide. The deceased student's father is unable and unwilling to accept the official ruling on the case.

Alex hems and haws, but, after meeting with the distraught dad, he agrees to take a look-see.

Within a few days, Alex, the Chief, and two FBI agents are confounded by a series of more deaths, all involving law-enforcement officials and their adult children, up to the point where Maven is convinced he's on the hit list.

In addition to the weather, the landscape plays an integral part in Steve Hamilton's latest novel, as Alex drives all over the state, UP and down, during the course of this outstanding mystery.

It's the eighth in this series, although it's easy to dive in cold here and still derive full satisfaction. Hamilton recently won the Edgar Award for his stand-alone thriller "The Lock Artist." Even so, "Misery Bay" is an even better read.

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