There is a river that runs through it. It is the (fictional) Alabaster River, and the town is Jewel, Minnesota. It is only a decade after the end of WWII, and many men returned home significantly changed. The town is celebrating Memorial Day when a body is discovered in the river. The victim is Joseph Quinn, belligerent wealthy landowner and renowned drinker. He’d been known to occasionally go down to camp overnight by the river. Perhaps he got drunk and fell in? Little hard to tell since his body got stuck on the way downstream, and the local aquatic wildlife made a feast of him. But eventually it becomes too obvious to ignore that there is a massive gunshot wound to his torso, which would seem to rule out suicide or accident. The list of folks with a motive is intimidating large, so Sheriff Brody Dern has his work cut out for him.
The primary suspect, Noah Bluestone, is a local guy and an indigenous WWII vet with a young Japanese wife. Neither of these facts work in his favor. And then there is the fact that he worked for the deceased. However, Bluestone refuses to make any sort of a statement when a tarp, stained with Quinn’s blood, is found buried near Bluestone’s home. His wife isn’t saying much either. It’s up to Dern, a vet as well with a lot of unfinished business in his home town, to put it together. Took a few zigs and zags I was not expecting, and the sense of place is strong. A good read.
