Black Tide Rising

May 1, 2015
McMillen cleary loves every square inch of her mystery's wild setting, a distant region in British Columbia: the mists, the brooding trees, the mountains, the winds, and the waves. It's the settings and the atmosphere that will enchant readers. Unfortunately, the island tends to overwhelm the characters and the narrative. Dan Connor is a former policeman attempting to heal after his career went awry. He finds himself pulled back into the job when a local woman goes missing. Her story is part of a larger weave, because the responsible party is involved in a scheme to conceal a half-million dollars in stolen jewelry. In their ineptitude, the thieves disfigure a totem pole that the locals have endowed with spiritual powers, and that's a crime nearly on a par with kidnapping. In some good action scenes, Connor and his crew foil all but one of the crooks. The remaining lowlife is seemingly brought down by the island itself, as though it's had enough of these creeps. Recommend this one to unregenerate nature lovers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)