Synopsis:
Max Rupert resigned from his position as a Minneapolis homicide detective to live in solitude. He’s still mourning the tragic death of his wife and racked by guilt. He alone knows what happened to her killer.
Lyle Voight, the former local sheriff, arrives at Max’s cabin with a desperate plea: Lyle’s daughter, Sandy, and his six-year-old grandson, Pip, have disappeared. Lyle insists that Sandy would never have run off without a word, leaving her parents and boyfriend hurt and confused. Lyle is certain that Sandy’s ex-husband, Reed, is responsible, but the new sheriff refuses to launch a comprehensive investigation.
Max reluctantly agrees to look into their disappearance, and also becomes convinced something went very wrong. But the closer Max and Lyle get to the truth, the slipperier Reed becomes, making a break for the beautiful but formidable Boundary Waters wilderness with vulnerable Pip in tow.
Racing after the most dangerous kind of criminal — a desperate father — and with the ghosts of their own pasts close behind, Max and Lyle go on the hunt in a treacherous landscape, determined to bring an evil man to justice . . . and a terrified child home safely.
Review:
Author Allen Eskens was a criminal defense attorney in the Minneapolis area for twenty-five years as he simultaneously studied writing and wrote solely for his own enjoyment. When he finally decided to see if he could get his work published, The Life We Bury was a great success so he gave up his law practice in 2017. HIs other books include The Guise of Another, The Heavens May Fall, The Deep Dark Descending, The Shadows We Hide, Nothing More Dangerous, and The Stolen Hours. He has received the Barry Award, Minnesota Book Award, Rosebud Award (Left Coast Crime), and Silver Falchion Award, and been a finalist for the Edgar Award, Thriller Award, and Anthony Award. His books have been translated into twenty-six languages.
Forsaken Country continues the story of Max Rupert, who has been featured in prior books. As the story opens, Max, now forty-five years old, is no longer a homicide detective. He resigned by mailing his badge and service weapon to his partner, Niki Vang. For three-and-a-half years, Max has been living alone in an isolated A-frame cabin that has been in his family for more than one hundred years. He has not shaved or cut his hair in all that time, and is barely recognizable even to himself. Max ensured that his wife’s murderer was brought to justice . . . his own way. Then he walked away from the career he loved, retreating from the world as penance for bypassing the system of laws and procedures he swore to uphold. Although Max can walk for miles without seeing another person, the cabin is close enough to Grand Rapids, Minnesota, to permit him to travel into the small town to purchase supplies.
Lyle Voight, former sheriff of Itasca County, and Max met five years ago. In his sixties, Lyle lost his bid for reelection and is now retired, focused on spending time with his six-year-old grandson, Pip. Seeing Lyle in town with Pip and his daughter, Sandy, convinces Max that he has not been living like a true hermit, sans running water and electricity, and growing and hunting his own food without driving to the local grocery store. Thus, his exit from civilization is “destined to fail.” So he has his electricity cut off and attempts complete “deprivation,” but abandons the experiment when it becomes apparent that he does not have the mindset of a hunter. It is a seminal moment in Eskens’ story — an illustration of the myriad contradictions within Max’s psyche that Esken deftly and convincingly explores.
Twice Max dreams about a child — Pip? — before Lyle arrives at the cabin asking for his help. Sandy and Pip have been missing for three days and Lyle is adamant that Sandy would never take Pip and vanish. “She wouldn’t do that — not in a million years. You don’t just up and leave when you got no cause for it.” Sandy divorced Reed Harris, a former deputy sheriff, when he became violent and has sole custody of Pip. Reed was not even granted visitation rights. Lyle’s successor, Tate Bolger, was Reed’s best friend in high school and the two have a dark and suspicious history. Bolger has refused to commence a full investigation, concluding after a cursory inquiry that Sandy gathered her son and their belongings, and left without telling her live-in boyfriend or parents. Lyle has looked into Max’s background and his baffling resignation from the Minneapolis police force, despite being its best detective, according to his former chief. Lyle implores him to help find Sandy and Pip. Max resists because “the world was supposed to leave Max alone — no favors, no friendships” and without a badge, he wields no authority.
He knew the truth and he would do whatever he had to do to save that child — and that’s when he felt it. It only lasted a second or two, but he recognized it right away, his mind becoming still, his pulse calming. It was as though every cell in his body understood that in that moment, Max had elvolved into his truest state. Laws, rules, justice, vengeance, black, white, and gray — none of it mattered.
Max’s well-honed investigative instincts are as sharp as ever and when he discovers how disinterested Bolger is in the case, he is dismayed at the scant effort Bolger made to satisfy himself that Sandy left of her own accord. He is compelled to help Lyle.
As Eskens relates Max’s journey, alternating chapters focus on the fate of Sandy and Pip. In heartbreaking detail, he describes the appearance of a man named Spud at Sandy’s home. He demands that she leave Pip with him while she goes to the bank and withdraws thirty thousand dollars, promising that no harm will come to either one of them if she complies. Of course, Spud is lying and as soon as Sandy returns with the money, Spud acts on the orders he has been given by his accomplice: Reed Harris. Spud, a fascinating, fully developed character, brings dimension to the story. When he meets Sandy, he realizes that Reed has lied to him in order to coerce him to participate in a scheme to take Pip away from his mother. Spud lacks initiative and critical thinking skills, but is different, in some significant aspects, than Reed. Eskens demonstrates how Spud, vulnerable and impressionable, has been influenced and used by Reed, but has not entirely lost his humanity. A surprisingly sympathetic character, Eskens ingeniously uses him to keep hope — and Pip — alive as Max and Lyle engage in a desperate search for the boy and his mother.
Forsaken Country is a fast-paced thriller. At the outset, Eskens reveals Sandy’s fate, drawing readers into his two narratives. One focuses on endearing, innocent, but believably feisty Pip; Spud, the duped kidnapper; and Reed, the truly evil and irredeemable mastermind of the criminal plan. Reed is a narcissist motivated by the desire for revenge because he believes Sandy had no right to separate him from his son. Predictably, he does not care about Pip but views him, rather, as a possession and uses him in a vile tug-of-war. When Reed’s true motivations become clear to Spud, he must choose his path. Juxtaposed against the tensions that arise between Reed and his criminal protégé is the story of Max’s jumping back into the role of detective alongside Lyle, an experienced peace officer who knows he will have to come to terms with Sandy’s likely fate, but is determined to save his grandson. Max knows all too well what a driving force revenge can be. It was his own insistence on retribution that led him to the life he is living when Lyle pleads for his assistance.
But Max no longer has the resources he needs to competently investigate the case at his disposal, so he has to swallow his pride and muster his courage to reach out to Niki. In Eskens’ capable telling, theirs is a complicated history and their feelings for each other as intense as the last time they saw each other. They were partners, first and foremost — dedicated professionals. And Max was married when they worked together, so there were lines they never crossed and emotions they never explored with each other. The scenes depicting their reunion, Niki’s provision of assistance while delicately skirting procedural boundaries that could harm her career, and their clearing the air and deciding the future of their relationship are emotionally rich, credible, and riveting. It’s not surprising that Eskens says “writing the scenes between him and Niki were my favorite. I’ve written about Niki in four novels now and felt that I got to peek deeper inside her character in this novel . . .”
As time ticks by and evidence of Reed’s plan mounts, the search for Pip intensifies. Eskens sets the last section of the book in the Boundary Water Canoe Area, a wilderness of over a million acres near the Canadian border, as Max and Lyle trail Reed and Spud, who have Pip in tow as they attempt to escape to Canada. It is a grippingly detailed account of a frantic cat-and-mouse chase as Max and Lyle desperately work to anticipate Reed’s next maneuver, catch up with him and Spud, and rescue Pip.
Eskens aptly describes his novels as “literary mysteries” that are “character-driven.” Initially, he planned to feature Max in only three books, but says that after he completed The Deep Dark Descending, in which Max hunts for his wife’s killer and, when he finds him, struggles to balance his devotion to law enforcement with his need for revenge, “I knew I would return to Max to see how his journey had affected him.” In Forsaken Country, Eskens examines Max’s moral conundrum in depth, as well as the implications of the choice he made. He knew that once he chose to extract revenge, he would have to pay a steep price. Indeed, it was that choice that sent Max into self-imposed exile from his career and relationships, and when Lyle convinces him to assist in the search for Sandy and Pip, Max is surprised at how natural it feels to resume the work he was so good at. But every step toward his old life and work is accompanied by evaluation and consideration. Just getting a haircut, shaving his unruly beard, and buying new clothing make him feel “unfaithful to his exile, as though he was slipping into a skin he shed three years back.” It is a skin — a life — he is sure he does not deserve to slip back into, in part because he views himself as a fraud. Eskens’ depiction of Max’s struggle to reconcile his commitment to the law with his own actions is compelling, especially when considered in contrast to Reed’s own quest for vengeance.
Eskens also explores the theme of fatherhood in the book. Reed’s motives for taking Pip away from his mother are in stark contrast to Lyle’s love for his grandson and selfless quest to find him and bring him home. Max did not know his wife was pregnant when she was murdered. He learned later from the medical examiner that in addition to losing his wife, his chance to be a father had been cruelly ripped away from him. “He hadn’t understood the true depth of all he’d lost until the medical examiner told him.” Reed leaves Pip in Spud’s care and, recalling happy times with his own father, Spud acts as a father-figure to Pip, for whom his feelings grow deeper as he gradually understands more about Reed and his true character. Eskens’ male characters facilitate a mediation on “what a father will do for their child, what makes a father good, and what makes one bad. In the end, blood is not necessarily the most important factor.”
“I believe that tension and emotion are the most important element of my stories,” Esken says. And Forsaken Country offers plenty of both. Eskens elevates his fast-paced, action-packed thriller about parental abduction into a thought-provoking contemplation of ethical boundaries and the costs of revenge, and whether redemption is possible and, if so, if it must be deserved or earned. Eskens’ characters are memorable, their stories deeply touching and, in some cases, heartbreaking. Forsaken Country is an entertaining and absorbing combination of mystery and layered, nuanced characterizations in which Eskens again showcases his storytelling prowess.
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