Outstanding Booklist Review of JACK PINE Comparisons to FARGO and William Kent Kreuger

In northern Minnesota, a logger is found dead. At about the same time, a teenage girl claims that she was molested by a Native American, but then changes her story. Some concerned citizens wonder if the same man is responsible for both incidents, but Deputy Sheriff Reuger London isn’t inclined to jump to conclusions, as he’s convinced neither that the logger’s death was murder nor that the girl was really molested. Under pressure to close the cases, London soon finds himself stuck in the middle of a potentially violent conflict between loggers and environmentalists. Hazelgrove tells great stories (his last book was the wonderful Real Santa, 2014), and he creates believable, captivating characters. The people in Jack Pine feel like just that: people, not fictional characters. Hazelgrove gives these characters a tactile environment, the Minnesota Boundary Waters region near the Canadian border, and real voices (that distinctive upper-midwestern drawl we know from Fargo). Another fine effort from a very interesting writer. This one will appeal especially to William Kent Krueger fans.

JACK PINE...A thriller of the North Woods
www.williamhazelgrove.com

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Top Amazon Reviewer Harriet Klausner Gives thriller Jack Pine Five Stars

ByHarriet Klausner#1 HALL OF FAMEon April 5, 2015

Format: Paperback

Jack Pine
William Hazelgrove
Koehler Books, Apr 1 2015, $18.95
ISBN: 9781940192680

On the Northern Minnesota side of the Boundary Waters that separates America from Canada, Deputy Sheriff Reuger London finds sexagenarian logger Foster Jones with a bullet in his head and his slasher vehicle burned. Soon after that Sheriff Riechardt tells Reuger that a teenage girl Dana Reynolds staying with her parents at the Lodge claims a big Indian raped her. Riechardt wants London to bring in the latter’s friend Tommy “Tobin” Toboken, a recent guest of Stateville Correctional Center, before the man flees to Canada.

Johnson Timber CEO Ben Johnson accuses the tree huggers for killing Foster and other loggers as a means to speed up the end of the industry in the area; the environmentalists insist not them but likely the loggers eliminating competition for the dwindling jobs. Owners of the best Jack Pine forest, the Ojibwa Indians distrust both groups whose respective agendas fail to consider tribal needs. In that environ, London seeks a killer and a rapist.

Armchair readers will feel transported to the Northern Minnesota forests in William Hazelgrove’s engrossing atmospheric police procedural; as even local vernacular adds to the sense of being there. The official investigations are top rate, but it is the rustic outdoor lifestyles that hook the audience throughout.

Harriet Klausner

 

www.williamhazelgrove.com

Jack Pine...no one can hear you scream in the woods