Fruits of the Poisonous Tree (43 page)

There are old cases and there are cold cases, and then there are old, cold cases… Special Agent Joe Gunther, of the newly-formed Vermont Bureau of Investigation, didn’t expect the VBI’s first case to be a fifty year-old murder. Then again, the victim probably didn’t expect to get an icepick in the heart, spend half a century in a chest freezer, and be unceremoniously dumped on the slopes of a ski resort with his feet sawed-off. He was, after all, a man who commanded some respect.

Stirring up the past can be a dangerous business, and Gunther soon finds himself in a cross-border partnership with the Sûreté du Québec, investigating a Canadian mob family whose crimes date back to World War II, but who remain just as deadly as ever.

The tony ski town of Tucker Peak, Vermont is experiencing a rash of condo burglaries. Normally this wouldn’t be a case for Joe Gunther and the newly-formed VBI, but when high-profile people have their high-value possessions stolen, names get dropped and strings get pulled. Turns out it’s just as well they called in Joe, since once they begin investigating the case suddenly develops a body count. Between drug-dealing, burglary, financial shenanigans, ecoterrorism, sabotage and murder, there’s something deathly serious going on behind the resort’s pristine veneer.

The heroin trade is making serious inroads into Vermont, spilling across the border from Massachusetts, destroying families and ruining lives. Governor Reynolds, with one eye on re-election, decides that the VBI should be waging its own War On Drugs. Of course, it falls to Joe Gunther to draw up the battle plans. Not everyone wants to follow Gunther’s lead, though — particularly detective Sammie Martens, who launches her own undercover operation and quickly finds herself enmeshed a very unpleasant underworld. Gatekeeper takes a sober look at the problems of drug crimes and enforcement efforts.

A barn fire is the kind of mishap that can spell doom for a struggling family farm. Just one of them in a community would be a small tragedy. A series of three, though—one of which kills a teenager and a herd of dairy cows—starts to look very, very suspicious. Which makes it a job for Special Agent Gunther and the Vermont Bureau of Investigation.

While other members of the VBI run-down the local leads, Joe and Willy embark on a road-trip. The federal database of unsolved crimes turns up a connection between the MO of their arsonist and similar fires in New Jersey, where organized crime is still very much a force to be reckoned with. But why would a mafioso from the Garden State be torching barns in the green mountains of Vermont? And can Joe and Willy bring their quarry to justice before he lashes out again?

Alaska is about 68 times the size of Vermont. Its winters are colder, its mountains higher, its animals wilder and its remote places far more remote. None of which is to say that it's at all
better
than Vermont. Just different. More.

If you've yet to meet Kate Shugak, we think fans of Joe Gunther will find much to like in the often-silent Aleut investigator who rarely finds complete comfort in anything but her dog’s company. Dana Stabenow’s Edgar award winning series is now on its twentieth volume.

#1, 
A Cold Day for Murder. 
A young National Park Ranger—who just happens to be a congressman’s son—goes missing, as does the investigator sent to find him. Local Bush expertise is called for, and while Kate Shugak thought she'd retired from investigating, it’s her home territory, the money's good, and it’s personal.

#2,
A Fatal Thaw
. Long Alaska winters get to people sometimes. This one certainly got to Roger McAniff, who decided to shoot nine of his neighbors in cold blood. Except that ballistics tests show one of them was killed by someone else, a cunning murder hidden in the midst of madness.

#3, 
Dead in the Water
. Two crewmembers from the crab boat
Avilda
are missing, presumed dead. It’s a dangerous profession, but there’s more than a whiff of malice in the air. Enough that the DA wants Kate to be onboard, at sea, undercover.