In Don Bredes’s Cold Comfort, Hector Bellevance left Vermont for Harvard, graduated into a job with the Boston Police Department, made detective, married, divorced, accidentally shot his partner during a raid gone bad, and then returned to Vermont because, as Robert Frost famously said, “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.”Now, in The Fifth Season, he’s back in the town of Tipton, growing vegetables for the farmer’s market, dating Wilma Strong, the hotshot reporter for the local paper, and serving as town constable, when Marcel Boisvert—a contrary town father who, as road commissioner, maintains Tipton’s rural thoroughfares—apparently goes berserk. Hector finds the county sheriff shot dead in Marcel’s dooryard and the Tipton town clerk shot dead in her office. Marcel has disappeared. Hector and Wilma and half of the Vermont State Police are looking for Marcel—and looking over their shoulders at the same time. The small town’s history, the complex interrelationships of people whose fathers and grandfathers were friends, and the outlaw independence of such a place all play into a tale of love, betrayal, and one very strange season.From the Trade Paperback edition.

Every small town has its secrets.Onetime Boston homicide detective Hector Bellevance is married now and settled on the family farm with his pregnant wife, Wilma, and their strong-willed eleven-year-old daughter, Myra, happily spending his days raising vegetables for the farmers’ market and serving, when needed, as the town’s constable.But Hector’s fair-weather days suddenly darken when a reckless driver leaves Wilma in a coma, and later, after the unrepentant driver turns up brutally murdered, Hector finds himself a natural suspect in the homicide. When the victim’s father offers to pay Wilma’s medical bills if Hector will find his son’s killer, Hector takes the case–more out of compassion than a desire to clear his own name.Yet the murder quickly proves more vexing and the motives more twisted than even a town constable could have foreseen. Hector discovers an unsavory secret behind every door, and he is soon caught in a web of sex offenders, backwoods meth addicts, undercover federal agents, Hells Angels, and an international drug cartel. Just when he’s ready to abandon his sputtering investigation–as the police have angrily demanded–Myra disappears from the hospital while visiting her mother, and Hector knows he cannot rest until he has found her. Everything he loves and lives for is at stake.From the Trade Paperback edition.

In Don Bredes’s Cold Comfort, Hector Bellevance left Vermont for Harvard, graduated into a job with the Boston Police Department, made detective, married, divorced, accidentally shot his partner during a raid gone bad, and then returned to Vermont because, as Robert Frost famously said, “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.”Now, in The Fifth Season, he’s back in the town of Tipton, growing vegetables for the farmer’s market, dating Wilma Strong, the hotshot reporter for the local paper, and serving as town constable, when Marcel Boisvert—a contrary town father who, as road commissioner, maintains Tipton’s rural thoroughfares—apparently goes berserk. Hector finds the county sheriff shot dead in Marcel’s dooryard and the Tipton town clerk shot dead in her office. Marcel has disappeared. Hector and Wilma and half of the Vermont State Police are looking for Marcel—and looking over their shoulders at the same time. The small town’s history, the complex interrelationships of people whose fathers and grandfathers were friends, and the outlaw independence of such a place all play into a tale of love, betrayal, and one very strange season.From the Trade Paperback edition.

Every small town has its secrets.Onetime Boston homicide detective Hector Bellevance is married now and settled on the family farm with his pregnant wife, Wilma, and their strong-willed eleven-year-old daughter, Myra, happily spending his days raising vegetables for the farmers’ market and serving, when needed, as the town’s constable.But Hector’s fair-weather days suddenly darken when a reckless driver leaves Wilma in a coma, and later, after the unrepentant driver turns up brutally murdered, Hector finds himself a natural suspect in the homicide. When the victim’s father offers to pay Wilma’s medical bills if Hector will find his son’s killer, Hector takes the case–more out of compassion than a desire to clear his own name.Yet the murder quickly proves more vexing and the motives more twisted than even a town constable could have foreseen. Hector discovers an unsavory secret behind every door, and he is soon caught in a web of sex offenders, backwoods meth addicts, undercover federal agents, Hells Angels, and an international drug cartel. Just when he’s ready to abandon his sputtering investigation–as the police have angrily demanded–Myra disappears from the hospital while visiting her mother, and Hector knows he cannot rest until he has found her. Everything he loves and lives for is at stake.From the Trade Paperback edition.