Misery Bay

Over-the-top plot developments undermine Angus’s thriller, which otherwise shows some flashes of talent. Mountie Garrett Barkhouse, who has devoted his career to investigating sex crimes, is burned out and eager for retirement, but his boss at RCMP headquarters in Halifax, Nova Scotia, dispatches him to the coastal village of Misery Bay, where Garrett grew up. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police retained a PI to work undercover in Misery Bay to investigate illegal immigration and drug smuggling, but he’s been killed, and the residents have demanded an official police presence. Soon after Garrett arrives, he accompanies a colleague on a raid of a ship, where he finds the bodies of four girls, one of whom appears to be no older than 13. They turn out to have been sex slaves who were shot in the head when the authorities closed in. His efforts to catch those responsible coincide with his burgeoning romantic relationship with Sarah Pye, the attractive widow of the dead PI. Angus (The Gods of Laki) makes the plight of the victims of human trafficking palpable, and a section in which Garrett is lost at sea in a kayak during a hurricane is genuinely terrifying, but the truth behind the crimes is more James Bond than Andrew Vachss. Agent: Peter Riva, International Transactions. (May)