The Fifth Season

March 7, 2005
The idea of the big city cop who accidentally kills his partner and then shakes up his life by going back to his rural hometown receives fresh treatment in Bredes's suspense series featuring Hector Bellevance, a Harvard graduate who was a detective in the Boston police department before tragedy overtook him. In Bellevance's poignant second outing (after 2001's Cold Comfort
), the author deepens an already original character, who has returned home to Tipton, Vt., where he works as town constable, grows vegetables for tourists and dates local reporter Wilma Strong. When Marcel Boisvert, a Tipton power broker, apparently goes berserk and murders two public officials, Bellevance and Wilma find all sorts of local secrets under various Vermont rocks. Though the novel is based on an actual 1997 case, Bredes manages to add a sizable amount of fictional flourish with impressive results. Agent, Howard Morhaim. (May 3)

FYI:
A Stegner Fellow at Stanford, Bredes is a contributor to such journals as the
Paris Review and the
New York Times Magazine.