COPY DESK MURDERS

In the first novel in Searle’s planned trilogy, two brothers—a cop and a journalist—investigate two suspicious deaths in 1984 rural Minnesota.

Boston Meade itches to return to Chicago as editor-in-chief of the major newspaper American Outlook. The divorced journalist has lately served as interim chief of small-town Minnesota newspaper the Alton County Statesman since his father, the paper’s owner and editor, died. While pursuing a bootlegging story, intern Peder Norgaard discovers the bones of the long-missing Minneapolis detective Max Kaplan. Peder digs into the mystery, and soon, his own body is found at the bottom of a ravine, and his notes have gone missing. The same day, World War II veteran Eliot Ferrall is found dead in his truck, a possible suicide—but there are no fingerprints on the gun and no blood in the cab. Suspicious as the deaths are, county sheriff Jack Meade finds no hard evidence to declare them murders. Jack, who’s biracial, was an 8-year-old orphan when Boston’s white family adopted him; he and Boston have been best friends ever since, but now they’re divided by Jack’s handling of the investigations. Boston’s hired a new editor for the paper—Ginger O’Meara, whom he dated in high school—but vows to stick around until there’s closure on Peder’s death. Meanwhile, Jack faces a charged reelection battle against white Dwayne Jager, whose slogan is “He’s one of us!” Searle delivers a page-turning mystery that tackles a host of issues, including racism, immigration, family conflicts, and job stress, and even includes a bit of romance. The author is a Minnesotan himself who was raised on a farm, and he ably manages to capture the state’s landscape (“his gaze took in the fencerows that divided southeastern Minnesota into fields of corn and soybeans, oats and pastures interspersed with groves and farmsteads”) and the pleasures of small-town life in a relatively low-tech era. The book is populated by several believable and flawed characters, and the potential suspects are likely to keep readers guessing.

A strong start to a new mystery series with a fine sense of place.