Middletide

A disgraced novelist’s words come back to haunt him in Crouch’s cunning debut. Thirteen years ago, a poisonous pan from a Seattle book critic killed Elijah Leith’s dream of a literary career. Since then, he’s returned home to Point Orchards, Wash., a tiny town off the Puget Sound. When the body of beloved Point Orchards doctor Erin Landry is discovered hanging from a tree deep in the woods of Elijah’s family property, police initially consider her death a suicide. But then they receive a copy of Elijah’s first novel, accompanied by a note that draws attention to the uncanny similarities between Landry’s death and the book’s premise, which involves a murder staged to look like a suicide. Suddenly, Elijah—who briefly dated Landry while on a break from his volatile relationship with high school sweetheart Nakita—finds himself in the investigation’s crosshairs. Though Crouch squanders some narrative momentum by frequently hopping between Elijah and Nakita’s teenage courtship, Elijah’s trial, and his homesteading efforts, she brings the action to a satisfying boil by the final act. Despite a few too-convenient coincidences, the novel’s vivid prose and evocative sense of place win out in the end. Readers will be eager to see what Crouch does next. Agent: Jane Dystel, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret. (June)

Correction: A previous version of this review misspelled Erin Landry’s last name and mischaracterized the initial police response to her death.