Walleye Junction

Starred review from March 21, 2016
The kidnapping and murder of controversial radio personality Philip Long kick starts Salvalaggio’s highly suspenseful third mystery featuring Det. Macy Greeley (after 2015’s Burnt River). Macy heads to remote Walleye Junction, Mont., to handle the investigation, which may be related to Long’s broadcasts on the rise of area militias. Kidnappers Carla and Lloyd Spencer are soon found dead of a heroin overdose, while Carla’s troubled teenage son, Sean, goes missing. Macy follows a trail of local secrets and anonymous emails that point to a series of prescription painkiller abuses. Meanwhile, Long’s daughter, Emma, returns to Walleye, having left 12 years before, when her best friend died from an overdose. Pulled back into a morass of gossip and bigotry, Emma tries to repair the relationship with her estranged mother, Francine, while finding herself drawn to the killers’ antidrug nephew, Kyle Miller. Precise character studies, a perceptive look at small towns, and realistic twists all add up to a winner. Agent: Felicity Blunt, Curtis Brown.

March 15, 2016
Abduction, murder, and scandal mar the beauty of cherry-blossom season in a small Montana town. Detective Macy Greeley, a special investigator for the Department of Justice, is responding to a call from kidnap victim Philip Long when she accidentally hits him with her SUV. She doesn't know that he's just escaped his captors, and the pelting rain on her windshield prevents her from seeing him running toward her until it's too late. Hanging upside down in her overturned vehicle, she watches in helpless horror as someone gets off a motorcycle and shoots Long with Macy's gun. After her rescue, Macy cuts short her recuperation, entrusts her young son to her mother's care, and returns to Walleye Junction to find Long's killer. She knows that as a talk show host, he riled up a number of people, especially militia members. But when the bodies of Carla and Lloyd Spencer--both long-term addicts, both dead of a drug overdose--are found next to the van used to kidnap Long, their motive appears to be merely money to buy more drugs. Forensic evidence that the corpses were moved, however, suggests a third party with an even more sinister purpose. Long's daughter, Emma, comes home to attend the funeral and look for an incriminating journal that only she knows her father kept. While Emma's confronting painful events from her past and the realization that her father kept secrets even from her, Macy juggles work, motherhood, and a romance with a police chief. Emma's love for her father and Macy's determination to help Long in death, even if she couldn't in life, bring them together over the big expose he was working on and implications that go beyond Walleye's borders. Even more than in Macy's earlier cases (Burnt River, 2015, etc.), personal complications encumber not only the protagonist's life, but also the story's momentum--though her flaws do make her more real. A dedicated detective and a grieving daughter find strength in teamwork in this bleak procedural.

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May 1, 2016

Montana state investigator Macy Greeley is racing to the site of a kidnapping in Walleye Junction when she hits talk radio host Philip Long, who had just escaped his captors, and crashes her patrol car. As she watches in horror from the side of the road, a motorcyclist pulls up and calmly shoots Long twice before riding away. Then two heroin addicts are found dead of an apparent overdose; evidence shows that they participated in the kidnapping. Greeley has doubts, however. Long had spoken out against militias in the state and had his share of enemies. Meanwhile, Long's daughter returns home to help her mother after a 12-year absence in the wake of her best friend's drug-related death. VERDICT Readers will sympathize with single mom Greeley's guilt (well depicted here) for leaving her toddler son to work on her cases. Her third adventure, following Burnt River, will appeal to fans of mysteries with a Western setting as well as those who enjoy John Hart and Lisa Scottoline. [Library marketing.]

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2016
In this this third entry in the fine Macy Greeley mystery series, a kidnapping/murder in the small town of Walleye Junction, Montana, keeps state-police detective Macy occupied. Controversial radio talk-show host Philip Long is kidnapped, then murdered with Macy's own gun, making this case clearly personal. Long had been angering the growing number of right-wing militias in the area, so they are the prime suspects until the two alleged kidnappers turn up dead of heroin overdoses. The local authorities are satisfied that the case is solved, but Macy is not convinced; the kidnappers' bodies had been moved, and their son is on the lam. Macy leaves her kids with her mother so she can concentrate on investigating in the small town. Meanwhile, Long's daughter, Emma, returns to Walleye Junction after a long, troubled absence, and suddenly prescription-painkiller abuse becomes an issue in the town. This is another complex thriller that drives much of its appeal from the author's ability to evoke the small-town Montana setting; C. J. Box fans will feel right at home here.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)