First Lines: Whistling Straits Golf Course, The American Club, Kohler, WI. Afternoon, July 9, 2004. The clammy hand of state representative Cyrus Johnsrud (R-Portage) has released her elbow and is drifting down her spine, stopping to savor each vertebra through the fabric of her gown.
Fifteen years ago, Heidi White was eighteen and the reigning Wisconsin Dairy Queen, dodging groping male hands and delivering her message all across the state. The world was her oyster and she had all sorts of plans... until the night that her parents were murdered. The police claimed it was murder suicide, but Heidi knows better. Unfortunately, no one will listen to her. Then followed some dark years when Heidi was her own worst enemy.
But she's found her calling. After her brilliant closing of a case, the married-with-three-kids Heidi Kick is the interim sheriff-- the first female sheriff in Wisconsin. Now she's trying to do her job while working with the corrupt previous sheriff's cronies whose constant derisive calls of "Dairy Queen" make her grind her teeth.
As a deadly ice storm heads for Bad Axe County, Heidi is on the trail of a missing teenage girl, and Pepper Greengrass's trail leads Heidi to backwoods stag parties, deserted dairy farms, and a salvage yard that has its own long-buried secret. As if her job weren't hard enough, she soon realizes that someone is planting clues for her to find, clues that lead to the local baseball team where her husband is coach and former star player. This new sheriff has a lot of work ahead of her if she's going to separate fact from fiction and find the missing girl in time.
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I have a weakness for mysteries with strong female lead characters and ones set in areas with which I am not familiar. Bad Axe County was a natural for me to pick up because it has both. "This is the Bad Axe. This is coulees. Where did you grow up?" Heidi asks someone. "Somewhere else," the driver said. "That's why you don't get it." The Bad Axe is a part of Wisconsin that's set apart, that has its own rules, its own problems. Drugs, human trafficking... as Heidi lists all the criminal activities in her county, she wonders why she decided to raise a family there, and you can't blame her. But her ties to the area are strong, and she's committed to making it a safe place for everyone who lives there.
The cast of bad guys is seemingly endless in Bad Axe County, and it's not so much a matter of whodunit but of which-one-dunit. After a few chapters, readers will want to pull up their sleeves, put on their sturdiest butt-kicking boots, and help Heidi clean the place up. But as strong as the mystery is, as strong as the sense of place is, the reason why this book became one of my Best Reads of 2021 is its marvelous cast of characters. I won't even waste any time on the characters readers will love to hate, I'm skipping right on to the list of Good Guys. Heidi Kick is smart, intuitive, and determined. Fortunately, she has two people in the sheriff's office who have her back: Officer Yttri, and the night dispatcher, Denise Halverson. Denise and Heidi have their daily "inoculations," Denise telling Heidi one horrible sexist joke after another, the reason behind it being that, when they are faced with the jokes from the jerks they're forced to work with, those "funnies" will have lost their power to inflict damage.
Then there are the younger members of the cast. Pepper Greengrass, missing and in terrible danger, has had a tough life, and her mantra "Nothing you do can hurt me" has the power to break a reader's heart. As far as I was concerned, Pepper and Heidi shared center stage. Heidi's five-year-old daughter, Ophelia "Opie", is a little gem. Much wiser than her years, she's going to be a force to be reckoned with when she's older. Heidi, Denise, Pepper, and Opie are prime illustrations of Heidi's comment, "Emotion makes us stronger. It's something men don't get."
Heidi cares with all her heart and soul, and after reading Bad Axe County, I'm going to be following her from one book to the next as she does her best to clean up her territory. Come join me.
Bad Axe County by John Galligan
ISBN: 9781982110710
Atria Books © 2019
Paperback, 336 pages
Police Procedural, #1 Bad Axe County mystery
Rating: A+
Source: Purchased from Book Outlet.
I got such a "kick" out of reading this review. How could I not? Love everything about the book that I see here, including the two co-workers telling each other the sexist lines they have heard.
ReplyDeleteI will immediately go to the library website and see if this book is in the system. Glad that it made your best books list.
I hope you get a chance to read it and that you enjoy it as much as I did, Kathy.
DeleteI'm with you, Cathy. I really do like strong female characters. And Heidi sounds like a fabulous character, too - an effective blend of realistic, but not 'demon-haunted,' and strong, but not superhuman. I like it! I'm glad you found the other characters to be strong, too. Even a fabulous lead character isn't always enough to save a book if the others are either badly drawn or just simply boring.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, Margot. Most of the time, one marvelous character is not enough to make the book a good read.
DeleteI just downloaded this one! Thanks for another recommendation, Cathy!
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome, Jen. I hope you enjoy it!
DeleteHeidi sounds exactly like the kind of strong female characters I like reading about most. I'll definitely be reading this one. :)
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that I could entice you, Lark, and I hope that you will enjoy it.
DeleteWhat a creepy opening sentence that is...
ReplyDeleteYou guys are killing me. So many great books are being discovered and brought to my attention that I feel like I've been running in place for the last year...in more ways than one. I just got home from the library where I collected another five "older" books that I really want to read from the series I already follow. This is great fun, but quite a challenge.
Yes, it certainly can be. You've been doing your own adding to my stacks, too, Sam. :-)
DeleteI'm in love with that cover.
ReplyDeleteVery atmospheric, isn't it?
DeleteThis one was on my radar, but your review definitely boosted it up the list! I'm with you on the strong female characters and learning about different places.
ReplyDeleteYes, we do seem to share a healthy percentage of reading DNA!
DeleteI have not heard of this series. I live about 1 1/2 hours from Vernon County, WI which is the area that Bad Axe County is based on. Our youngest son lived in the area for two years, so we visited often. That area is referred to as the Coulee Region. When we first moved here, we didn't understand what that meant. Now we do. It is a beautiful area. I will have to look this book up.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like it would be beautiful.
DeleteThe Midwest has beautiful areas. Since I grew up in Chicago, we vacationed at rustic cabins in woods in Wisconsin and Michigan on lakes. Always beautiful sites and wonderful to drive through.
ReplyDeleteWell... having grown up in Illinois, I am well aware that the Midwest has beautiful areas. I just haven't been to Wisconsin.
DeleteJust saying as the book description brought up memories of those trips to the wilds of Michigan and Wisconsin, and to swimming in lakes, something we miss in the Big Apple.
ReplyDelete