BITTERFROST

Gruley returns to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula for another round of bloody murder.

Jimmy Baker has always had anger issues. His career as a minor league hockey player ended abruptly when he was ordered to go after opposing player Cory Richards, goaded Cory into punching him in order to juice his own adrenaline, and then nearly killed him. Divorced from his wife and separated from his daughter, Jimmy operates Zelda the Zamboni on the Calvin & Eleanor Payne Memorial Arena, home to the Bitterfrost IceKings. Trouble arrives in the form of two guys from the Lower Peninsula who appear at the Lost Loon on a night when Jimmy mysteriously gets blood on his jacket, loses his all-important gloves, and goes to sleep only to wake up the next morning with no memory of that previous night. When one of the men turns up dead, all the circumstantial evidence points to Jimmy as his killer. Needing legal representation, Jimmy calls on his old friend Devyn Payne, a defense attorney, who persuades her wealthy mother, Eleanor, to post $250,000 for Jimmy’s bail. Being out of jail with an ankle monitor, however, offers him little relief, since the bodies continue to drop and Jimmy continues to get blamed for them. Gruley briskly alternates between Jimmy’s and Devyn’s perspectives and that of Det. Garth Klimmek, who painstakingly gathers evidence against Jimmy, as each of them does what they do over and over again until Jimmy goes on trial and sees Cory Richards appear to testify against him from his wheelchair. The fade-out seems to hint at a sequel, though it’ll be hard-pressed to keep up with the intensity Gruley maintains here.

A freezing, sobering exploration of the hero’s mantra that “every day’s a penance.”