Starvation Lake

Starred review from January 19, 2009
Gruley's outstanding debut effortlessly incorporates his inside knowledge of both the newspaper business and his hockey avocation into a tale of violence and betrayal that will remind many of Dennis Lehane. After crossing an ethical line while writing an investigative series for the Detroit Times
, reporter Gus Carpenter has returned to his hometown of Starvation Lake, Mich., to work for the local paper, whose stories mostly reflect the pedestrian and placid nature of smalltown life. That changes when evidence surfaces that the town's legendary hockey coach, Jack Blackburn, who disappeared after an apparent snowmobile accident a decade earlier, was actually murdered. Carpenter's reopening of the case, which has personal resonance for him (he'd been the goalie for the amateur boys' team Blackburn coached), shakes all sorts of skeletons loose. Gruley, the Wall Street Journal
's Chicago bureau chief, has a gift for making all his characters, from the leads to the bit players, realistic.

February 1, 2009
Ten years after it disappears beneath the icy waters of Starvation Lake, a beloved hockey coach's snowmobile is found in another lake.

Jack Blackburn had it all. His players adored him, and his success in bringing them closer and closer to the Michigan championship put his adopted town on the map, brought a welcome influx of new investment capital and made him the first citizen of the hockey-mad hamlet. Now the snowmobile on which his assistant Leo Redpath watched him sink into Starvation Lake has turned up five miles away. Did it drift there through an underground tunnel, or is there a more sinister explanation? Gus Carpenter, the former goalie who blew the state championship game for Blackburn's finest team, would seem the logical person to investigate. But Gus's experience digging up juicy stories for the Detroit Times has come at a high price, and not even his secluded gig as associate editor of the Pine County Pilot can prevent his scandalous past from resurfacing. Gus's struggle with this new mystery is complicated by his old rival Teddy Boynton's attempt to put Soupy Campbell, Gus's best friend, out of business, and by his painful discovery that all the people he's been closest to, from his mother to his old girlfriend to his society columnist, have been hoarding secrets that have made them strangers to him.

Gruley's debut is generously plotted and rewardingly solid on character and atmosphere, though most readers will be ahead of Gus every step of the way.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

Starred review from March 1, 2009
The discovery of pieces of a snowmobile owned by the late Jack Blackburn, the much revered hockey coach in Starvation Lake, MI, prompts a new look into what happened ten years earlier, when Blackburn perished in the frozen water. Gus Carpenter, recently returned from Detroit after a failed attempt at working for a bigger publication, edits the local newspaper. With a young journalist, he works on the Blackburn story and uncovers some secrets no one wants exposed. In confronting the ghosts from his past and the evils of the present, Carpenter finds his moral and ethical footing. Gruley, a Michigan native, an amateur hockey player, and the Chicago bureau chief for the "Wall Street Journal", has written a terrific first novel about what it means to be a journalist. Full of insider knowledge about hockey and great local color, this is not to be missed. Highly recommended for all collections.

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from February 1, 2009
Gus Carpenters big-city journalistic career has gone down in flames, and he returns to Starvation Lake, a faded resort town at the northern end of Michigans Lower Peninsula. There, he faces another ignominy: everyone in town remembers that he is the goalie who gave up the winning goal in the state ice-hockey championship more than a decade before, and many relate the towns economic slide to that loss. Soon after his return, evidence that might explain the mysterious snowmobiling death of Gus coach is found, and as de facto editor of the local paper, Gus must pursue the truthbut the cost of redemption is high, for everyone. Starvation Lake is a wonderfully polished and assured first novel. Gruleys portrayal of a struggling small town in a harsh environment rings with authenticity. His characters are believable small-town archetypes; some are self-aware, some are in denial, others are oblivious. The plot is convoluted, but Gruley maintains the suspense very effectively. Ice-hockey scenes not only advance the plot but also offer insights into the sports culture and its importance to small, very cold towns. Many good crime novels appear every month, but few have the depth and poignancy of Starvation Lake, which deserves comparison with Dennis Lehanes Mystic River.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)