Alone in the Wild

December 23, 2019
Early in bestseller Armstrong’s emotionally charged fifth novel set in the Yukon (after 2019’s Watcher in the Woods) Det. Casey Duncan and her boyfriend, Sheriff Eric Dalton, are on vacation from their jobs in Rockton—an off-grid sanctuary for those looking to disappear—when they find a woman shot dead in the snow. Clutched to her chest is a newborn, dehydrated but alive. Casey and Dalton bring both to Rockton, where they determine that the victim isn’t the child’s birth mother. Rockton doesn’t allow minors, but its sundry misfits agree to babysit while Casey and Dalton search for answers. Solving the murder should help identify the infant’s biological family, but the duo must tread carefully; not all of Rockton’s neighbors are good or sane, and the woman might have been warranted in taking the child. The tension rises as Casey and Dalton explore settlements about which Armstrong has previously only hinted, and they confront their own complicated feelings regarding parenthood. Fans of thrillers, small-town mysteries, and classic PI novels will be well pleased. Agent: Helen Heller, Helen Heller Agency (Canada).

December 1, 2019
In Armstrong's latest in her series set in the remote town of Rockton (where people go to forget their past), Detective Casey Duncan is taking a little vacation with Eric Dalton, her boyfriend and the sheriff of Rockton, when she discovers a murdered woman whose body holds her still-living baby. Who is the dead woman? Was someone in Rockton responsible for her death? The fifth Rockton novel (following Watcher in the Woods, 2019) builds on the previous four, opening up the town a little more, revealing more of its mysteries and more of its residents' hidden secrets. The prolific Armstrong is an adept storyteller (she's writes horror and fantasy as well as mysteries, for both adults and teens) who makes the rather out-there idea of a small, protected community full of people with things to hide seem not only plausible but entirely believable. Fans of the author who have not yet checked out the Rockton novels should do so, pronto.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

September 1, 2019

In off-the-grid Rockton, a town deep in the Canadian wilderness where a mix of criminals and victims are hiding from their pasts, Det. Casey Duncan is out camping with her beloved Sheriff Eric Dalton when they discover a grisly scene: a murdered woman buried deep in the snow with a crying baby in her arms. Now the entire town, which doesn't allow in those under 18, must figure out how to care for the babe. Fifth in the popular series.

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