Northern Lights

Starred review from September 6, 2004
Roberts shines again with a nuanced tale of the Alaskan wilderness and the appealing eccentrics who cluster there. Former Baltimore cop Nate Burke accepts the unlikely post of police chief of Lunacy, Alaska (pop. 506), to stave off the depression caused by divorce and the traumatic death of his partner, for which he holds himself partly responsible. His early days in the close-knit town are quiet except for minor disturbances and a dalliance with a feisty bush pilot, Meg Galloway. Then Meg's father, who disappeared 16 years before, is found frozen in a remote mountain cave, an ice ax in his chest. The discovery that Pat Galloway was murdered—most likely by a local—shakes up the town and drives his murderer to commit a second, cover-up killing. Though state authorities dismiss that death as suicide, Nate pursues it as a crime—a decision that puts him at odds with many outspoken Lunatics, as the townspeople call themselves. With quiet inexorability he fields the flak, uncovers long-forgotten events and finds a tough but loving balance with the fiercely independent Meg. Though billed as romantic suspense, the novel forsakes artificial genre conventions in favor of a wry, affectionate look at community bonds, generational wounds and soul-testing landscapes. The result is a richly textured novel that captures the intimacy of smalltown police work, the prickliness of the pioneer spirit and the paradox of a setting at once intimate and expansive, welcoming and hostile, indisputably American and yet profoundly exotic to those in the Lower 48.Agent, Amy Berkower at Writers House.
(Oct. 12
)
Forecast:
Roberts keeps her lock on bestseller lists with her uncanny ability to balance high-quality work and high-frequency publication.

June 1, 2004
A washed-up urban cop flees Baltimore for-Lunacy? That's the name of the small Alaskan village where Nate Burke becomes chief of police-and unexpectedly finds love.

Copyright 2004 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2004
Nate Burke, a Baltimore police detective, blamed himself for the death of his partner in a shootout, and the resulting anger and grief sent him into a depression so dark and deep he thought he would never climb back out. Then Nate decides to accept the position of police chief in the small town of Lunacy, Alaska, and it seems as if life is giving him one more chance. Things are certainly different in Lunacy, and Nate begins to enjoy his encounters with the town's colorful inhabitants, especially bush pilot Meg Galloway. The unexpected romance that slowly develops between Nate and Meg becomes quite complicated, however, when the body of Meg's father, who disappeared in 1988, is found in an ice cave, and Nate has to try to keep his new love safe from a cold-blooded murderer who is willing to kill again to keep old secrets safely buried. RITA Award-winning and " New York Times" best-selling Roberts beautifully captures the rugged splendor of Alaska, and her cast of uniquely endearing secondary characters adds just the right touch of quirky humor to her splendidly entertaining, sexy, and suspenseful romance about two tough yet vulnerable people.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2004, American Library Association.)