Publishers Weekly
★ 11/06/2023
Nurse practitioner Pease’s outstanding debut centers on Eli North, a military veteran and former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service investigator whose life was severely disrupted by his tour of duty in Afghanistan. North’s physical and psychic wounds were compounded by the elimination of his Fish and Wildlife job and the dissolution of his marriage when he returned to the U.S., which drove him to heavy drinking. Before things got too bleak, North’s mother, Marge, the sheriff of Sherman County, Wis., pulled North back from the brink and hired him as her deputy. When North responds to a noise complaint from a family staying in a lakeside cabin, he finds the body of young Ben Sharpe in a fishing boat tied to the dock. The mystery of the boy’s death is complicated by Marge’s cover-up of Ben’s mother’s drug use during the murder investigation and the subsequent disappearance of one of his friends, which leads to the FBI’s involvement. North hopes that solving the case will help restore his self-esteem and confidence, but he faces a thicket of drug deals and small town secrets that threaten to take him down before he gets to the truth. Pease’s sharp dialogue and well-rounded characters enrich the core mystery with an authentic representation of the everyday struggles of small-town Americans. Admirers of Eli Cranor will eagerly await more from this gifted writer. (Jan.)
Lori Rader-Day
"If you’re going to these Northwoods for peace and quiet, think again. Amy Pease’s debut novel is a gorgeously rendered character study of a man, a mother, and a place with far too much going on under the surface. The perfect lakeside reading."
Craig Johnson
"Get lost in Amy Pease’s words, get lost in the gripping personal debut of a complex new series—get lost in NORTHWOODS."
Mystery and Suspense Magazine
"Strong characters, a great plot, fascinating relationships, and excellent pacing . . . . A thought-provoking debut."
The New York Times Book Review
"[An] indelible debut."
Bookreporter.com
"A breathtaking combination of police procedural and personal redemption. . . Written with a taut plot, scintillating dialogue and a sharp eye for detail, NORTHWOODS is the kind of debut that readers dream of: the announcing of an exciting new talent and the promise that more is to come. . . . Pease writes with tremendous compassion, but she is also brave and unflinching in her portrayals of difficult themes and situations, and her control of her pacing, plotting and tension is masterly."
William Kent Krueger
"In NORTHWOODS, Amy Pease powerfully shatters the myth of tranquility in the beautiful north country of Wisconsin. Murder, drugs, and PTSD are among the demons that populate rural Sherman County, where lake resorts abound and the sheriff’s department is underfunded and understaffed. Pease’s brilliantly told story of a beleaguered mother-son law enforcement team is a compelling and heartbreaking debut that marks a new and important voice in the mystery genre. This is a novel you absolutely don’t want to miss."
Mindy Mejia
"Through vivid settings and unforgettable characters, Amy Pease shatters the peaceful illusion of upper Midwest resort towns. I couldn’t get enough of Sheriff Marge North, a woman whose emotions are a vital asset to her job, and her son, Eli, whose buried trauma makes investigating a murder nearly impossible. NORTHWOODS is much more than a crime novel. It’s a story of how the world breaks us and yet sometimes, if we’re lucky, offers us a path forward. A debut not to be missed!"
People
"A riveting debut by a nurse practitioner with an insider's view of the opioid epidemic."
Stephen Amidon
"Amy Pease’s NORTHWOODS is a novel so skillfully immersive that it is hard to believe it is her first. Her story weaves a gripping murder mystery with compelling character studies; her Northern Wisconsin setting teems with secrets and menace. It all makes for a powerful, poised and propulsive novel that marks the emergence of an exciting new voice on the thriller scene."
Booklist
"Propulsive...Pease expertly builds tension as the book progresses, weaving together multiple perspectives to construct a complex mystery. Her gripping and atmospheric novel will keep readers invested until the last page."
New York Times bestselling author William Kent Krueger
A novel you absolutely don’t want to miss.”
Madison Magazine
"Thrilling."
BookBub
*Best Mysteries and Thrillers of Winter*
FEBRUARY 2024 - AudioFile
The narration team of Zac Aleman and Chris Henry Coffey does a fine job with the pace of this audiobook featuring characters with strong emotions and varying internal struggles. While combat veteran Eli North hasn't hit rock bottom, he's close--but he must keep his head above water as he and an FBI agent investigate the death of a teenage boy in a Wisconsin resort town. With guidance from Eli's mother, the town sheriff, the pair dig deep and unravel a larger mystery surrounding the boy's death. The narrators deftly deliver the introspective struggles of Eli and his mother while capturing the frustration of Eli's separated wife, the fear of his young son, and the naïveté of a young informant. The varying voices work to keep listeners intrigued. M.B. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2023-10-07
A bucolic resort town on a lake in northern Wisconsin is the setting for a grim tale of drug addiction and murder.
Eli North, a former elite investigator with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service suffering from PTSD after a stint in Afghanistan that left him wounded, addicted to alcohol, and plagued by delusions and thoughts of suicide, is newly separated from his wife and barely getting by as a sheriff's deputy under the supervision of his mother, Marge, who has been sheriff in the town of Shaky Lake for decades. When he's called to investigate a noise disturbance at an empty cabin, discovering the body of an adolescent boy and learning that a teenage girl is also missing, he rallies enough to investigate with the aid of FBI agent Alyssa Mason. Eli, Marge, and Alyssa discover a complex plot involving a pricey local drug rehab center, a resort with financial problems, and a prescription drug company and its representatives. In her debut novel, Pease brings the community to vivid life, from the bar where the locals drink cheap beer to the palatial homes of the summer people from Chicago. Nearly everyone in this world has deep problems that they attempt to alleviate with one substance or another, from Marge's relatively benign attempts to deal with migraines to the debilitating drug addiction of the mother of the murdered boy. The bonds, for better or worse, between mothers and their children are crucial to the novel, and Pease illuminates their intricacies with a sharp eye. Eli, perpetually in danger of dropping off the edge of his life, is a particularly compelling character, but the others are also well developed and compassionately observed. While the author sometimes juggles more plot elements than the novel can comfortably handle, with the result that some storylines are inexplicably dropped, the depth of the setting and characters make for a rich reading experience.
A powerful depiction of the repercussions of substance abuse in the rural Midwest.