The Hidden River: A Murder in the Everglades

Thielman’s solid second novel featuring National Park Service investigator Alison Nance and homicide detective–turned–park ranger Clarence Johnson (after The Devil’s Kitchen) shrewdly combines elements of police procedural and historical mystery. At the outset, Nance and Johnson have been reassigned from Yellowstone to Everglades National Park. When Hezekiah “Heka” Freeman, the Everglades’ artist in residence, turns up drowned under dubious circumstances, Johnson suspects the artist was killed for creating a piece that depicted the details of a crime. As Nance and Johnson’s present-day investigation unfolds, Thielman interweaves a historical plot about a young enslaved man named Samuel fleeing South Carolina with his father and mother through Florida’s “Saltwater Railroad,” in hopes of escaping to the free isles of the Bahamas. Along the way, Samuel becomes an artist whose masterwork—a landscape painting of an island—includes the coordinates of a buried treasure. Thielman ties his two stories together in smart, subtle ways, entwining past and present through plausible shared resonances rather than cheap coincidences. Nance and Johnson’s rapport is enjoyable; the swampy, sun-baked Everglades leap off the page; and the histories of art and enslavement are enlightening. This is a winner. Agent: Paula Munier, Talcott Notch Literary. (Oct.)