Bitterfrost

Gruley (the Bleak Harbor novels) launches a promising new mystery series with this tense tale of murder in small-town Michigan. Jimmy Baker’s minor league hockey career ended 13 years ago when he almost killed another player during a fight on the ice. Ever since, he’s scraped together a living as the Zamboni driver at his local rink in Bitterfrost, Mich. One morning, Jimmy awakes on his kitchen floor with his hands and clothes covered in blood and rust and with no memory of the night before. Soon, he learns that witnesses and forensic evidence have linked him to a double murder that took place in the hours he can’t remember. Given his violent reputation, the Bitterfrost rumor mill starts up, and a desperate Jimmy turns to his friend, Devyn Payne, a former big-shot attorney who’s left her Detroit firm to “fend for murderers and drug addicts and drunk drivers and wife beaters” in Bitterfrost. As she pieces together Jimmy’s defense, Devyn investigates the murders on her own, putting herself directly in harm’s way. Gruley buttresses the book’s sleek procedural elements with a textured, lived-in setting, granting even minor characters a surprising amount of dimension. It’s an auspicious opening act. (Apr.)