The Last Frontier

When I was up in the Boundary Waters on the old logging roads on a motorcycle following the grey sandy roads through fallen trees and second growth forests I had the feeling that I was on the edge of the last frontier. It was summer and I had been away from the "Lower forty eight" for three weeks and one definitely felt there was this life and there was the modern life below.

You do not have to look for the reason people went West. They went West to find themselves. The frontier was declared closed in 1880 by Frederick Jackson Turner and this left people with the notion the Great Adventure was over. It was not. The million acres Teddy Roosevelt set aside on the top of the country that became the Boundary Waters was and is largely untouched.

When I was researching Jack Pine I was amazed to learn all the trees had been logged out and that all I was seeing was the Jack Pine. One can only imagine what the country looked like with the towering white pines all well over three hundred years. I haven't been back to The Boundary Waters since those years of research. But I will go back one day...if for nothing else than to see the Last Frontier one more time.

Jack Pine

www.williamhazelgrove.com
 

Fantastic Publishers Weekly Review of JACK PINE A Thriller of the North Woods

Hazelgrove (The Pitcher) delivers a searing look at a disintegrating company town and the desperate lengths people will go to in order to preserve their way of life. In Ely, Minn., near the Canadian border, Johnson Timber is the cornerstone business, with tourism a distant second. When loggers start getting killed, militant environmentalist Tom Jorde becomes a suspect; and when a 16-year-old girl cries rape, Sheriff Riechardt blames Tommy Tobin, a local Indian. Deputy Sheriff Reuger London tries to just do his job, but his ability to perform it with emotional detachment becomes increasingly difficult, as Johnson Timber owner Ben Johnson, Riechardt, and Jorde constantly pressure him to serve their respective interests. Distinctive supporting characters help keep the pages turning, including Ben’s bullying grown son, Cliff; an environmental lawyer, Patricia Helpner; and a morally bankrupt newsman, John Mcfee. Rough country and people as tenacious as the jack pines, the softwood trees that have replaced the old clear-cut timber, make Hazelgrove’s novel memorable.

Jack Pine A Thriller of the North Woods

Writing the Historical Thriller

I have written two books that might be termed historical thrillers, Tobacco Sticks and Jack Pine. Both books required a lot of research and both required me to go to the actual location. Lets take the first one Tobacco Sticks. This book began with stories my father used to tell me about his family in Virginia and his father who was a lawyer and who ran a Senators campaign in 1946. I began by recording my dad and gathering all the scrapbooks and pictures he had. Then I went to Virginia.

In Virginia I lugged around a video camera and interviewed people who knew my grandfather in 1946. Then I went and videotaped where he lived and where he worked and then finally where he was buried. I then returned to Chicago and went to the library to do some legal research on court cases. Then I made outlines and arranged the pictures I had of my fathers family on the table. This was how I got into that world every day and five years later I published Tobacco Sticks which was my break out book and hit the National Bestseller List.

Now we come to Jack Pine. This began by going to the Boundary Waters on a family vacation and becoming interested in the way of life in this remote wilderness that struck me as the way the country used to be. Then I found out about the logging issues associated with the area and again talked to a lot of people. Finally I rode around with a Deputy Sherriff and asked a lot of inane questions about police procedures. Then I returned to Chicago and got out lots of books on logging and did my outlines again.

Ten years later I published Jack Pine which is due out (the paperback) this month. The story of a way of life that is vanishing and the struggle between the enviromentalists and loggers with a psychopath thrown in to get things going. I would love to write another set in the early twentieth century but I need to settle down and go into that world. Something that his harder and harder to do these days.

Jack Pine...a thriller of the North Woods

www.williamhazegrove.com


 

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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