North Country — Matt Bondurant

A taut literary thriller set along the northern border, North Country explores the monsters frozen in the depths of the human soul.North Chazy, New York is the heart of the North Country, a frigid region nestled against the Canadian border, characterized by the beautiful landscapes of the Adirondacks and Lake Champlain—plus a steady stream of Quebecois drugs flowing south, spirited by snowmobile across the ice.Tom Kaiser, fresh off a dishonorable discharge from the Air Force, returns to North Chazy for his ailing father’s final days. It’s an uneasy homecoming—ever since his little sister was lost under the ice in mysterious circumstances when they were children, Kaiser has felt a terrible presence swimming in the deep.Needing work, Kaiser falls in with Donnie LeClair, a slumlord, loan shark, and aesthete whose private collection of landscapes would rival a modest museum’s. Kaiser earns his keep roughing up unsavory locals who are late on their rent. But his true value is his aptitude for satellite telemetry, allowing him to find gaps in border surveillance, a useful skill for working with a Montreal kingpin who wants to move large quantities of ecstasy into the US.As Kaiser spirals through the underbelly of drugs and crime, he finds the roots of evil run deep in the North Country—as bleak, impenetrable, and foreboding as the frozen lake.