UNTAMED FURY

Small-town Pendleton, New York, becomes a hub for lies, murder, and conspiracy in Kreutz’s debut thriller and series launch.

Curt Cutler, a 38-year-old bank president, has long played a bizarre game with his identical twin brother, Cash. For a day or two each year, they “switch lives,” a ruse to which no one has ever caught on (“No matter what, we had to play this stupid game”). The game ends abruptly, however, in 2011, when Curt discovers his wife and Cash (pretending to be Curt) fatally shot in his home. He has no clue who the target was; did someone realize Cash was posing as Curt? Authorities suspect the surviving twin as well as Jake Chambliss (aka Jake Charm), Cash’s old friend who just recently returned to town after a decades-long absence. Curt and Jake look for someone with a motive, considering everything from a Mexican cartel’s potential involvement to whoever was trying to buy the bar that Cash owned and ran. But Jake, who may be a member of Special Forces, brings his own troubles. He’s privy to a coverup involving the Oklahoma City bombing, and a couple of corrupt FBI agents have seemingly trailed him to Pendleton. Kreutz effectively builds his mystery: the narrative initially focuses on Curt’s internal conflict as he struggles with not knowing whether he should admit who he is or continue “being Cash.” The well-drawn characters gradually complicate the narrative, including Cash’s girlfriend Skylar Meade and a news reporter who knows more about the Cutler twins than she probably should. The story ultimately shifts to center Jake, whose riveting scenes entail painstakingly shadowing people, suffering nightmares of his past, and rescuing someone who’s been taken captive. While the culprits behind other crimes, such as money laundering and another homicide, are easy to identify, that opening double murder remains an engrossing whodunit throughout. While the text includes violent imagery, the author rigidly avoids profanity, going so far as to censor a few bits of dialogue.

This absorbing mystery is a terrific introduction to the titular hero.