I love a debut book, add in an unreliable narrator and an interesting mystery and I am in.

Eli North, Amy Pease's hero, has lost his marriage and the job he loves. He struggles with a relationship with his son, his mother is trying to help him but that comes with working for her, the sheriff in a small Wisconsin town. North also is a vet with PTSD and a drinking problem. He is a guy we want to root for, but he consistently sabatoges himself.

Synopsis: Called out for a noise complaint, North discovers a teenage boy dead in a boat and his girlfriend missing.

Northwoods, the small lakeside resort town, is the perfect atmospheric location. It comes alive with vivid descriptions of fishing trips, campfires, and festivals. However, something evil lurks underneath this perfection, adding layers of complexity to the mystery.

With the discovery of a dead boy, a chain of events gets set off sending Eli, his mother, and a young FBI agent into a web of secrets and danger. Northwoods combines a gripping murder mystery with the opioid epidemic, corporate wrong-doing, and the impact of war on individuals and communities.

The plot keeps your attention. Themes of addiction, corporate deception, and absent parenting are seamlessly woven into the story, making this more than your run of the mill typical murder mystery.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Atria Books for this twisty turny murder/thriller read.

4.5

This was a really excellent debut and I hope that it continues to find success and leads to more books with these characters. If you're like me and you like books that have a mystery element, but make you think about things or reconsider your perspective on a people, place or thing then this is the book you should grab to start your 2024.

Without really going over the plot, I think what this book does best is take a lot of contemporary struggles (opioid use/addiction, PTSD) well, without being preachy or beating the issue to death. Things were presented like we were all intelligent adults and we weren't talked down to. Even if I agree with an author on a particular issue, sometimes I think the plot can get a little lost in pursuing the urge to educate or change minds on a particular issue (even if I agree), so I was really glad that this book didn't get bogged down in that. You were able to see the impacts on each character and how that reverberated throughout their life. (I realize I just went on a mini soapbox myself just now!)

The mystery was a good one and even though I kind of figured out the outcome towards the end, it didn't take away from my enjoyment what so ever. In fact, this book really shined because of the characters. They were interesting, complex and sort of random! A local police chief, her son (who used to be an Special Agent with the US Fish & Wildlife service who is now part of his mother's dept) and an FBI agent who comes to assist them.

I think this would be a great start to a series and it should also be optioned. This would be an excellent adaptation. I am very excited to see what Amy Pease writes next and it will absolutely be at the top of my list. HIGHLY RECOMMEND!

Review Date: 01/09/2024
Publication Date: 01/09/2024

Ohhhhhhhhh
Myyyyyyyyyy
Lanta!!!!!!!!
Five stars isn’t enough to do this book justice. A must read for crime lovers. The intricate details of what the characters were feeling; made the reader feel like they were right there in the room with the character. Intense emotions felt by the characters were described in a way that made you feel like the character at times. I quickly became hooked with this book!!

✨ Northwoods ✨⁣
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⁣Genre- Crime Thriller. ⁣
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⁣Length- 288 pages. ⁣
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⁣Happy Monday! Who else loves wonderfully written police procedurals? Sheriff’s deputy Eli North is not okay. He’s drinking too much, suffering from PTSD and struggling with family problems. When he discovers the body of a teenage boy, he must pull himself together if their is any hope of finding a missing girl. ⁣
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⁣This is author Amy Pease’s debut novel and she knocks it out of the park! Northwoods takes an honest look at struggling small towns, the opioid crisis and drug abuse, and PTSD. I really enjoyed it! Four stars! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⁣
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⁣Northwoods publishes tomorrow, January 9. Thank you to @netgalley and the publisher for a free ARC in return for my honest review.

I’m so tired of reading books where the MC has addiction problems 🙃 It was such a huge factor in this book, I’m surprised I finished it. Besides that though, the story was alright. I don’t think it was anything crazy and definitely not the best thriller I’ve ever read considering I figured out the big twist pretty early on.

This is a debut novel and it was interesting to say the least. While I did find a few things aggravating about this book it was still good. It had a lot of the things that I enjoy in a good mystery. Murder, kidnapping, drug addict, PTSD, possible alcoholic, relationships, children and a few more things.

The beginning was a bit slow and repetitive in places. I thought the being sick (vomiting) was a bit overused and maybe even the suicide thoughts. Though I can see where that would happen in this case. But still... I just found it taxing.

You meet a man, Eli, who has a drinking problem and not a small one. Yet he is a cop. Of course he works under his mother so that helps. It helps him. He has problems. Like a lot of problems. He is suffering from PTSD. Alcohol abuse. Stress. Divorce. A lot. In reality I just can't picture him as a cop. But he seems to be good at his job. You will hear a lot about Eli. He is the one that found the body. The body of a sixteen year old boy.

Then you meet his mother Marge. Marge is a fierce woman when it comes to her son. Even though he is grown and has or had his own family. She will protect him at almost all costs. She knows he messes up a lot and that he needs to get help but what can she do. Be there for him. I liked Marge for the most part. She's a strong woman in a male dominated job. She is good at her job.

When Ben is found dead the police force have to figure out who did it. Why and possibly where a young sixteen year of girl is. Ben was a good kid. His mother is a drug addict. But she loved her son. There are a few people with addiction problems in this book. Be warned. It's a sad situation. A pharmaceuticals company with secrets. A family separated and in fear. A man doing all he can to get to his family. To save them from a possible murder. What did he find that scares him so bad. How did his bosses know it was him?

This is a good, but not great, book with a lot going on. Families torn because of drugs. A man with nightmares because something that happened on the other side of the world. A mother who loves her son no matter what. And an ending that ties it all up nicely.

Thank you #NetGalley, #AmyPease, #Atria for this ARC. This is my own true thoughts about this book.

3.5 increased to 4 stars. The ending was great. This may be an author to watch for.

This was really well written for a debut. Very character driven, which I really enjoyed, because you get to see the main character really develop. I also enjoyed that this tackled several hard topics, main one being opioid addiction, but also ptsd, and alcoholism. This was a quick read, but I was expecting a few more twists and turns as it was predictable.

Northwoods is a highly character driven crime thriller, which I am here for. I loved the complicated relationship between Eli and Marge. I appreciated that this didn’t shy away from serious topics, especially through the characterization of Eli and everything he was dealing with. And I loved that the plot centered around the opioid crisis, and thought the exploration of the dynamics of addiction was nuanced and respectfully done.

I found the mystery to be complexly layered and fun to unravel. The story was deeply personable and never fell into the trap other police procedurals sometimes do where they become too clinical. This was well-paced, full of strong writing, and kept me invested the entire way through. It is a very solid debut and I’m looking forward to reading more by Pease in the future.

Thank you to Atria Books and Netgalley for the ARC

This is the author’s debut novel. I think she did a pretty good job and has potential. It’s a short mystery that touches on a lot of deep topics – PTSD, alcoholism, drug addiction, and big pharma. Lots of dysfunction for a little vacation town with a police force of just 4 people. I believe the intention was for there to be some twists/surprises along the way but as a reader of a lot of mysteries, I found them fairly predictable. I did enjoy it though – I really liked the main character and it definitely kept my attention, pulling me along to conclusion. I would recommend it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria for the complimentary copy of this book. As always, the opinions expressed within this review are completely my own.

This book I picked up because I thought I would like it after reading the description. This is the first book I've read by Amy Pease (and after reading it I found out this is her debut novel). Well done Amy Pease and I hope this will be a series!

Description:
Eli North is not okay.

His drinking is getting worse by the day, his emotional wounds after a deployment to Afghanistan are as raw as ever, his marriage and career are over, and the only job he can hold down is with the local sheriff’s department. And that’s only because the sheriff is his mother—and she’s overwhelmed with small town Shaky Lake’s dwindling budget and the fallout from the opioid epidemic. The Northwoods of Wisconsin may be a vacationer’s paradise, but amidst the fishing trips and campfires and Paul Bunyan festivals, something sinister is taking shape.

When the body of a teenage boy is found in the lake, it sets in motion an investigation that leads Eli to a wealthy enclave with a violent past, a pharmaceutical salesman, and a missing teenage girl. Soon, Eli and his mother, along with a young FBI agent, are on the hunt for more than just a killer.

If Eli solves the case, could he finally get the shot at redemption he so desperately needs? Or will answers to this dark case elude him and continue to bring destruction to the Northwoods?

My Thoughts:
This is both a crime thriller and a police procedural. The story was engrossing and kept me guessing. I liked Eli and was rooting for him to get a handle on his alcohol addiction and PTSD from his service in Afghanistan and get back on track for himself and his family. The story moved at a good pace and I kept turning the pages. The town seemed nice as a resort destination, but there is something darker going on beneath the facade. The death of a teenager and then another missing teenager triggers the investigation that follows. Pease seemed able to put me into the town and feel what was happening there. I would recommend this to any of my friends who like crime drama.

Thanks to Atria Books through Netgalley for an advance copy. Expected publication is January 9, 2024.

Thank you to Atria Books and Amy for an advance copy of Northwoods.

Title: Northwoods: A Novel
Author: Amy Pease
Genre: Mystery / Crime / Police Procedural
Series or Standalone: Standalone, although I believe it’s open ended enough that Amy could begin a series that follows Eli North and/or the Shaky Lake sheriff’s department.
Rating: 4 stars

Eli North works for the Shaky Lake police department located in a small town in Wisconsin. Because his mother is the sheriff, he’s able to keep his employment while drinking himself into a stupor every night due to both PTSD from serving in Afghanistan as well as coping with the separation from his wife. Shaky Lake is a pretty quiet vacation town with the occasional noise complaint or drug offense being the most action the police department rarely sees.

One night while Eli is drinking he discovers the body of a teenage boy in a boat on the lake. The strange thing is that there was loud music coming from one of the empty vacation homes that drew Eli to the scene. Someone did this intentionally. The investigation leads Eli to find that another teenage girl has gone missing. While Eli struggles with his sobriety, using this case and his relationship with his son as a reason to keep hanging on, he works with his mother and an FBI agent, Alyssa, brought in to assist on the case as well, as this may be connected to something much bigger than Shaky Lake.

First and foremost, this was a debut novel and I always like to point that out. I LOVE to point that out when the debut is successful, and this was definitely a success in my book.

We get a lot of layers in Northwoods - the plot that’s driving the whole story (the mysterious death of the boy & missing girl), Eli’s complicated relationships with his ex, his son, his mother, his coworkers, and even himself, the pharmaceuticals industry, small towns, relationships between parents & children, drug addicts & loved ones, etc. The list goes on and on. I felt invested in Eli from the start and as I read on and met more characters I quickly became interested in knowing more about them and this little town as well.

Drugs, both illegal and legal, play a big role in this book making it a timely read as no corner of the US is safe from the opioid crisis and every person in America has been or will be impacted by Big Pharma in some way.

The plot itself moved at a good pace for me, culminating into an explosion of a finale.

I would absolutely read a continuation of any of these character’s stories should Amy end up making this a series.

Very strong book with a well-done investigator! good storyline with two stories that quickly converge, and an intriguing culprit hunt. thanks for the arc.

Wow! This book really surprised me. It is a less than 300 page crime thriller/police procedural that I was able to fly through in just two sittings. It is a tight story with a murder of a teenage boy and a missing girl but so much more than that.

The author really brings you into the setting of this novel and the Midwestern resort town in which the murder takes place. The setting really becomes like a character in the novel and oh the characters - the main character of Eli is so complicated and flawed and amazing. He is struggling with PTSD from his time in Afghanistan while trying to solve the murder and so much of this book deals with addiction, the opioid epidemic and mental health - and the affect this has on those around Eli, his mother, his friends, his son. I commend the author for taking this police procedural and really developing these characters to a level I wasn't expecting and including themes that are so important and beautifully handled.

I highly recommend this book. I definitely was right there with Eli trying to solve this crime - and even though I figured out some of what was going on and who was involved early on - I was so invested in these characters and their story.

What a wonderful debut - I cannot wait to see what Amy Pease does next.

Thank you to Netgalley & Atria for this advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest opinion!

This debut novel combines a deep character study with a murder mystery, and a police procedural. It also deals with some difficult topics like PTSD, drug addiction, and parental neglect. I thought that the beginning of the novel in which the main character is introduced was a little confusing. Eli North is part of the local police department in his small town but he seems to lack motivation to succeed and is kind of drifting through life until he discovers the body of a dead teen in a boat. Then the action became engrossing and the story took off in various multi-layered directions. Most of the book was a slow burn with the emphasis on characters and the procedures being followed to find the killer in the town. I liked getting to know the characters, flawed as they were, because they were realistically portrayed and very relatable. The plot moved at a moderate pace and picked up as the mystery was getting closer to being solved. I did feel that some parts were too weighty and didn’t add anything to the story, but I enjoyed the read especially the conclusion that led me to believe that this is the first book in a series. There is a lot of pondering going on in this novel, about Eli’s self-worth and his contribution to law enforcement in the town. I really liked that the author included me in the study of her characters; it was almost like I was a part of the story, looking into the window and seeing all of them and how they behaved in public and in private. I felt bad for Eli at first because he was such a lost soul, but the development of his character let me know that he is strong and capable and could claw his way back to reality after episodes of losing touch. This is a deep book with some tough scenes and lots of backstory for the characters. I look forward to learning more about Eli and his adventures in the future as he becomes even stronger and more aware of his own talents.
Disclaimer
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. I was not required to write a positive review, and all opinions expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16th CFR, Part 255, “Guidelines Concerning the Use of Testimonials and Endorsements in Advertising.”

The steady erosion of the workforce in rural areas is pushing a major crisis in substance abuse to epidemic proportions. This is what underpins the story that debut mystery writer Amy Pease chooses to tell us.

Eli, our main character, is self-medicating with alcohol (the legal drug) his PTSD, his marriage ending, and the loss of his career in the US Fish and Wildlife job he's done since leaving Afghanistan. His mother Marge does what any good parent would do, scrapes him up and gives him a purpose: As sheriff in a drastically underfunded department, she hires him to be a deputy. No one can say it's only nepotism, since he was a soldier, then a game warden, and so what if he's her son? Should she overlook his attendance problems and his increasingly frequent panic attacks from his entirely self-"managed" PTSD? In reality, no. In the book, she does, and it goes pretty much unexamined. As does a lot of the painfully obvious skulduggery rampant in the town...in the name of "going along to get along."

No good deed goes unpunished.

Eli comes across a murder that will make the entire town take stock of what they all know but won't discuss. In this way it resembles "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" in its exposé of complicity by silence. The silences run deep. The town's got many dirty little secrets, and Eli has the end of the thread that unravels the curtain hiding them in the murder of a teenaged boy. That it involves a local drug rehab center...for rich people...is the meat of the sandwich. There is a LOT of drug use in Shaky Lake, Wisconsin, and no one from the town gets help at that rehab...nicely done, Author Pease. There's a lot to unpick in the way this story attacks many facets of the status quo. This is, in fact, the reason I gave it four stars. If I was going solely on its literary merits, maybe three would be more like it. The pacing is slow, the way the author uses descriptions is odd...though it was the way I stumbled upon my fourth star...and the completely unprofessional behavior of Sheriff Marge towards her deputy Eli wouldn't pass the most casual law-enforcement scrutiny.

The action in the book, as in direct conflict, takes place in the last quarter or so; until then, one's got to be kept reading by the investment made in the characters. The frequency of Eli's panic attacks as he responds to the initial call for a disturbance of peace and thus discovers the dead boy became a cause of problems for me. I got jittery every time I was forewarned of another social situation that would trigger Eli. It's a state of negative arousal, so I wasn't at all sure I wanted to keep reading. His lack of proper help, at apparently any turn in his post-service life, turned out to be my dark little clue of what the author was doing. The lights came on for me when I realized the only places she was using descriptive words that were more than merely functional was when Eli was in the woods, or among the wealthy people in his resort-ridden town. The safest and most unsafe places in Eli's world were heightened, thus counterpointed.

Clever. Subtle. Make the contrast unmissable, once you've seen it. The plot's main driver becomes less the murder of that poor kid, and more the hideous disfiguring sense of entitlement that Eli smacks into as he shakily grasps the threads of motive behind the murder. After the dead kid's girlfriend disappears and the FBI gets involved...why that would occur remains hazy in my mind...even then, Eli and Marge are just kept in their place. That the resolution of the case comes at the cost of Eli's illusions about his world, and his mother, is down to the outsiders. Yet nothing is going to change, it feels like to me; the perpetrators are not let off scot-free but there's no sign of some wider awakening....

Honestly, I was in two minds about how to rate and focus on the review until I thought back on the larger exposé aspects of the story as told. Eli is a suffering everyman, a person used and discarded by the very world he's served and is still serving as being broken therefore useless. What I felt the author was doing in making Eli's panic attacks so frequent yet so pointedly timed, was a kind of human kintsugi. Much like the narrative device in A Man and a Woman, it's something that must be allowed to pervade one's sense of the story. To bring it into sharp relief would've made the author's deeper purpose, the one I perceived anyway, too on-the-nose. No exaggeration intended, it truly changed my perfectly okay read of a first mystery, possibly a series-starter, into a very pleasant read of a solidly crafted, well-aimed novel.

Good one, Author Pease.

Loved this mystery set "up north". Seems like great potential for a series. I'll read more if it continues! The characterization was brilliant and believable and the plot was perfectly paced.

Northwoods by Amy Pease was an excellent debut novel.
From the second I picked up this book, I couldn't put it down. The way the author weaved the tale throughout the story was perfect. It was a quick paced mystery.
Good character development and great dialog. The descriptions are fantastic and realistic.
A great mystery and police procedural that held my attention from start to finish.

"I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own."

Thank You NetGalley and Atria/Emily Bestler Books for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

I was immediately drawn to this novel’s setting, a small resort town in Northern Wisconsin and it did not disappoint.
Pease weaved a multi-leveled mystery with the personal battles of war veteran, investigator and main character, Eli. I loved the relationship with his mom and county sheriff, Marge, and how she refused to give up on him.
A solid debut and I’m hoping this is the start to an amazing series from Amy Pease. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the digital arc. Releases January 9th!

Northwoods is the debut novel from Amy Pease.

"Eli has turned to alcohol to deal with his failed marriage, his emotional scars from his deployment in Afghanistan and his lackluster career as a sheriff's deputy. He's only a deputy because his mother is the Sheriff. He stumbles on the body of a young boy. The discovery leads them to a missing girl and a conspiracy pointing in an unlikely direction. "

The feel of this book reminds me of We Begin at the End. There is depth and emotion in the characters. There's an underlying malaise in the community. Eli is a character that has fallen hard. He will not seek the help that everyone wants him to get. He has many dark moments but you keep pulling for him.
This is a gritty crime-fictionstory from Pease. She pulls you in and makes you care about these characters, especially the broken ones.

Great debut from Pease. I look forward to more stories from her.

Eli, the main character, is hanging on by a thread and living from day to day. He is suicidal, an alcoholic and an addict, and obviously suffering from PTSD. His wife has divorced him, and he rarely is able to see his son. His mother is the chief of police in their small town, and keeps Eli on the payroll apparently to give him a reason to keep living. Then a local boy is found dead in a canoe, with no apparent cause of death. What could kill a healthy teenager and leave no cause? And is there a link to a large pharmaceutical company in town?

I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher Atria Books via NetGalley, and voluntarily read and reviewed it.