![]() The couple meet while volunteering on mountain trails: Joe with his church and Ella with the Washington Trails Alliance. These quiet contemplative moments where the book diverges from the driving action are its best. There’s a well-rendered scene where Joe and Ella meet and, thereafter, the connection feels genuine. Also, would San Juan Island residents be so uncharitable to a guy in mental distress? Could be the drama was all too real, but it didn’t sit well on the page.įor awhile the relationship between our protagonist, Joe Stanton, a nice guy Episcopal priest, and his girlfriend, Ella Tollefson, a nice gal nurse (described as simply beautiful, perhaps, too often) felt flat, but it was redeemed in Chapter 33 with a key bit of exposition. It’s a tough introduction for the reader, too. The book starts in medias res with the main character’s traumatic mystical experience which leads the people around him to think he’s either mentally ill or on drugs. Antagonist Sheldon Beck is inexplicably evil for much of the book, with some explanation provided later, but which distracts from the storytelling. ![]() It has some of the weaknesses of the genre too: scenes tinged by melodrama, nonsensical violence and thinly drawn characters. It follows genre conventions well by moving along at a nice clip, ending each short chapter with a hook, and teasing the reader along with mysterious circumstances. ![]() Bennett (author of the young adult novels, The Gaia Wars and Battle for Cascadia), succeeds nicely as an eco-lit foray into the thriller category set in the Pacific Northwest. ![]()
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