An Unforgiving Place

by Claire Kells

Overview

In a remote corner of Alaska, Investigative Services Bureau agent Felicity Harland squares off against a mysterious cult leader with potentially deadly motives in this thrilling outdoor adventure for fans of Scott Graham and Nevada Barr.

While enjoying a rare weekend off from her duties as an agent with the Investigative Services Branch, Felicity Harland learns that a young couple has turned up dead in Gates of the Arctic National Park. Harland recruits her partner, ex-Navy SEAL Ferdinand “Hux” Huxley, to join her in the investigation.
After processing the peculiar scene where the couple perished, Harland and Hux decide that this was no tragic accident. They soon hear about a man living off the land, recruiting couples to his “fertility cult” in the Arctic. Could this survivalist have played a role in the couple’s death? Determined to get to the truth before someone else meets a similar fate, Harland and Hux venture deep into the backcountry to find the cult’s campsite. But what they find there tests their relationship in ways they never imagined—and thrusts them into a dangerous and deadly game.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781639101238
Publisher:	CROOKED LANE BOOKS
Publication date:	11/08/2022
Series:	A National Parks Mystery , #2
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	350,539
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Claire Kells is a physician and writer, whose best-selling debut adventure novel Girl Underwater was released in 2015. An avid open water swimmer and outdoor enthusiast, Claire gravitates toward stories of survival, struggle, and redemption. Her experiences as a practicing physician also play an important role in her novels, and she’s grateful for all the fascinating stories her patients have told her over the years. Vanishing Edge is the first installment in a new series featuring a partnership between an ISB agent and park ranger, who solve mysteries set in the National Park system.

Editorial Reviews

2022-08-31
In remote Alaska, a National Park Service investigator links two mysterious deaths to the enigmatic leader of a fertility cult.

Though she’s on vacation from her Investigative Services Branch detail in Alaska’s Denali National Park, Felicity Harland is called in for a case that brings her to the remote Gates of the Arctic National Park, above the Arctic Circle. ISB needs to investigate two bodies found along the park’s Alatna River. Could they be those of missing hikers Kelsey and Tim Greer? Harland asks her sometime partner Ferdinand “Hux” Huxley to join her, hopeful that both his meticulous eye for detail and his past as a Navy SEAL will help. Plus, at this point, she enjoys Hux’s company, which manages to be companionable without asking anything of her. It doesn’t take Harland and Hux long to determine that something is amiss with the bodies, which appear to be those of two people who willingly embraced death. Clearly that’s not right, but what does it mean? Listening to folks more familiar with the area leads Harland and Hux to believe the deaths may relate to a local fertility group, a cultish cadre of long-term campers led by the enigmatic Zane Reynolds. Tracking down the group is quite a feat, but more difficulties stem from Harland and Hux’s decision to pose as a long-term couple in order to infiltrate it. Their investigation threatens to cross the boundaries of safety as well as the personal and professional lines they’ve been so careful to establish. Will it change their relationship in ways that can’t be changed back?

Emphasizing personal details over the case marks a definite shift in this parks-focused series.

Kirkus Reviews

Praise for An Unforgiving Place:
2023 AWARD NOMINEE, G.P. PUTNAM SUE GRAFTON MEMORIAL AWARD

“[This] investigation threatens to cross the boundaries of safety as well as . . . personal and professional lines.”
—Kirkus Reviews

Praise for Vanishing Edge:
"An appealing crimefighting team . . . Fans of Scott Graham’s National Parks mysteries will want to check this one out."
—Publishers Weekly

“A determined professional duo investigates wilderness wannabes: What’s not to like?”
—Kirkus Reviews

"Superbly crafted characters and a strong sense of place, VANISHING EDGE is a first-rate mystery!"
—Marc Cameron, New York Times bestselling author of the Jericho Quinn series and Arliss Cutter series

"When wealthy ‘glampers’ go missing deep in Sequoia National Park, bitingly witty repartee between the pair of park-service investigators assigned to the case makes Vanishing Edge a delightful debut. I can’t wait for the next!"
—Scott Graham, National Outdoor Book Award-winning author of Canyonlands Carnage

"In Vanishing Edge, Claire Kells delivers everything an outdoor mystery needs—vivid landscapes, a chilling plot, and engaging characters, both human and canine. An outstanding debut!"
—Margaret Mizushima, author of the award-winning Timber Creek K-9 Mysteries, including Striking Range

“A disturbing crime scene deep in the wilderness, an assortment of peculiar suspects, and a gutsy, determined investigator combine to make this a first-class mystery.” 
—Pamela Beason, author of the Sam Westin Mysteries

"Claire Kells delivers a taut mystery set in the rugged backcountry of Sequoia National Park. With its engaging and very likeable main characters and plot with myriad twisting, intriguing clues, this book will hook readers from the start." 
—Alice Henderson, author of A Solitude of Wolverines

From the Publisher