The 5th book (2004) in the Lucas Davenport series is one of the author’s favourites.

Davenport meets his future wife in this one.

It is winter in the remote, dark Wisconsin woods.

But the chill in the local sheriff’s bones has nothing to do with the weather.

The extravagance of the crime is new to him: the murdered man, woman and child; the machete-like knife through the man’s head; the ashes of the fire-consumed house spread over the ice and snow.

In desperation, the sheriff turns for help to the reclusive lawman he’d heard had a cabin up here, and with reluctance Davenport agrees, but it is a decision he will soon have reason to regret.

For this is a kind of criminal new to him, too.

Authorities make a lot of stupid decisions. Disappointing.