BEAST OF THE NORTH WOODS

Cryptozoologist Morgan Carter goes hunting for the world’s most unlikely murder suspect in frigid Door County, Wisconsin.

The Rhinelander police have arrested Andy Bosworth for the murder of his old high school frenemy Brandon Kluver. In his defense, Andy insists that Brandon was already dying when he arrived on the wooded scene, attacked and gutted by a dim presence Andy spotted out of the corner of his eye. It was a Hodag, he tells his aunt, Rita Bosworth, who persuades Morgan, her employer at Odds and Ends, to investigate. Rhinelander police Detective Hoffman isn’t exactly sympathetic to Andy’s plea. And Mayor Corey Michaels and his allies are actively hostile. They descend on Morgan demanding that she cease and desist her attempts to hurt the town’s brand by linking its long-time mascot, a fantasy creature first dreamed up as a hoax over a century ago, to any nefarious real-world doings. But even though Morgan, still haunted by her experience with David Johnson, the ex-fiance who murdered her parents and vanished two years ago, is initially reluctant to head this fishing expedition, which Brandon’s live-in Judith Ingles calls “a fool’s errand,” the case has her name written all over it. After many conversations about murders past and present, endless false leads, and an annoying profusion of had-I-but-known foreshadowings, Morgan succeeds against all odds in tracking down the cryptid at the heart of the mystery, though it’s not the one she had in mind.

Neatly combines the codes of real-world homicide investigation and of tales of beasts from the dark side.