superbly suspenseful: the fisher king by melissa lenhardt

in the six weeks since we last saw jack mcbride in stillwater his life has gone to shit. he's going through the motions of pretending to reconcile with his estranged wife. he's hosting his deliquent brother, eddie, and worried that he'd fallen into the same rough crowd he always does. his surly teenager is surlier than ever, even though he is the entire reason he is pretending to make things work with his soon-to-be ex. and the worst thing is that he can't spend any time around ellie yourke martin without giving away that he is head over heels for her.

the fisher king kicks off with a blazing fire, one that has also consumed two bodies. jack needs to figure out who these victims are, who murdered them, and how this all ties into the unsurpassed crime wave happening on his watch in stillwater. as in stillwater, there are several crimes being investigated at the same time. and the alternating point-of-views slowly expand our understanding of how everything is linked.

the characters and the setting are so important to the story being told. and as the darker elements of stillwater are brought into focus, some of the connections between the characters change everything. i especially enjoyed getting more of the story on eddie, because even in stillwater it seemed like there was more going on than we knew, and the fisher king definitely provides some answers.

as the novel comes to a close, a lot of things have been tied up, but the door isn't entirely closed on more stories in this world. and if that's the case, well, i'm up for reading them.