THE BONE HOUSE

Mystery aficionados may need to keep notes as they read this captivating thriller, the first stand-alone work from Freeman (Immoral, 2010, etc.).

Mark Bradley, former professional golfer, chooses the road less traveled after injury ruins his game. He becomes a high-school English teacher and moves with his new wife, Hilary, also a teacher, to isolated Washington Island off the peninsula north of Green Bay, Wis. There the Bradley's idyllic life implodes after he is accused of having a love affair with a student. The girl denied the affair, but Mark was terminated, supposedly because of budget cuts. The lack of evidence, however, didn't keep Bradley from being shunned by a hostile community. Readers meet Mark and Hilary as they attend a high-school dance competition in Naples, Fla. Stressed and restless over the loss of his job and the maligning of his character, Mark takes a late-night walk on the beach. There he meets a drunken, bikini-clad Glory Fischer, younger sister of the student Mark was accused of seducing. Nothing untoward occurs, but Mark and Hilary learn the next morning that Glory was murdered on the beach. Freeman moves the action back to Wisconsin, and tagging along attempting to pin the murder on Bradley is Cab Bolton, the Naples police detective assigned to the case. Freeman peoples his mystery with a cavalcade of intriguing characters—Felix Reich, a hard-bitten sheriff; Peter Hoffman, the man who saved the sheriff's life in Vietnam; Hilary Bradley, a beautiful woman refusing to doubt her husband. The author blends multiple plot lines, leaving no loose strands, and there are more dead than one murdered girl. However, readers may come away with the idea that it's Bolton who has the aura of a protagonist capable of carrying a mystery series. How many cops are sons of Hollywood film stars? How many cops have killed a lover revealed to be a terrorist?

A book that presents sufficient twists, turns and traps to intrigue any devotee of the thriller genre.