Starvation Lake

A highly entertaining first novel … a haunting story of harsh reality in a small town. The well-developed characters make it easy for the reader to become embroiled in their lives.

Debuts don’t come much more polished than this tale of corruption and redemption. Gruley gets the details right, from the goofy-endearing features of small-town journalism, to the complexities of lifelong friendship.

His characters are genuinely flawed and, Carpenter especially, honestly likable. Gruley’s gripping plot unfolds like a piece of investigative journalism…

Many good crime novels appear every month, but few have the depth and poignancy of Starvation Lake, which deserves comparison with Dennis Lehane’s Mystic River.

Gruley’s outstanding debut effortlessly incorporates his inside knowledge of both the newspaper business and his hockey avocation into a tale of violence and betrayal that will remind many of Dennis Lehane.