SKELETON LAKE

A near-fatal shooting sends a veteran cop tumbling back to two turning points in his life.

After being shot on the job, Anchorage private detective Nik Kane slips in and out of consciousness. His memory of recent events comes back in painful pieces, beginning with the death of his son Dylan. An incremental recovery, aided by his half-sister, now a nun, is counterpointed by two memorable times in his life. In 1985, fledgling police officer Nik faces the first big investigation of his career; in the 1960s, teenage Nik, in the shadow of a juvenile delinquent brother, finds a first love and a first job and tries to find Teddy, the father who abandoned his family. In ’85, rookie Nik trails in the wake of his partner, larger-than-life Detective Sergeant Giuseppe Donatello DiSanto, aka Jackie Dee, as they investigate the suspicious shooting of popular detective Danny Shirtleff. Jackie Dee teaches rookie Nik the ropes. Nik now wonders whether his senior partner, who always operated outside the lines, may have known more about Danny’s shooting than he let on, or worse.

Doogan (Capitol Offense, 2007, etc.) gets maximum impact by interweaving his three related plotlines, each of which could have sustained its own novel. Writing with as much style and authority as ever, he’s crafted a plot worthy of his prose.