Northwoods by Amy Pease

October 7, 2023

Northwoods by Amy Pease

After serving in Afghanistan, Eli Woods suffers from PTSD and self-medicates with large amounts of alcohol. He has a job as a sheriff's deputy only because his mother is the town sheriff. When a teenaged boy is found dead and his friend is missing, Eli partners with an FBI agent and joins the search. But the more answers he gets, the more tangled the mystery becomes.

The whole story here swirls around addiction. Although this is a decent mystery, the author tried to cover too many big topics: PTSD, alcoholism, addiction, the opioid crisis, big pharma, white collar crime, family relationships. The narrative would have benefited from less description involving extraneous characters (is it really important that the wife of the guy who owns the fishing camp wears a ton of make-up and has her boobs practically hanging out of her top?). 

Set in the North Woods of Wisconsin, this really could have been set in any small vacation town. I know this area - we vacationed there several times when I was a kid, and later with my husband. "Resort" is something of a misnomer - the term resort makes me think of luxury linens, spa facilities, golf, and fine dining. The resorts in the North Woods are more like fishing camps. Nothing bad about that, we loved them as kids. I've never seen a country club in this area like the one described in the book, but I do know the gangster John Dillinger had a hideaway in Wisconsin called the Little Bohemia Lodge (it's still there today).

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an eARC for review.

North Woods fishing camp