THE BLUE EDGE OF MIDNIGHT

Philadelphia cop Max Freeman thought he’d left the worst of his life behind when he killed a 12-year-old thief in self-defense and left the force. Abandoned by the SWAT team wife whom he’d given up without a struggle when he saw where her eye was roving, he’s taken his disability payoff and retreated from the civilized world into a stilted shack at the edge of the Florida Everglades. But the Glades can be as nightmarish as any blasted cityscape, as Freeman finds when the canvas-wrapped package his canoe nudges in a quiet river pool turns out to be a dead child. Alissa Gainey is the fourth victim of the Midnight Murderer, who’s kidnapped and killed three other children in ways that suggest both the wildest side of Florida wildlife and the losing battle environmentalists are fighting against powerful developers and well-heeled tourists. Freeman’s grisly discovery brings him to the attention of the joint task force partnering county sheriff’s investigators and state law enforcement. It’s a potent combination, and one that looks like more than a match for the beleaguered, and increasingly suspect, Freeman. Already tormented by flashbacks to his traumatic twelve years on the force, he finds himself hamstrung between cops eager to nail him for a horrendously unpopular series of crimes and a killer who seems to be dogging his every attempt to get to the bottom of the mystery with brutal disapproval.

King’s debut tells a familiar story with somber authority and a keen appreciation for the wildness of the Glades and its people.