Nothing Left to Mend by Matt R. Weaver
This rural noir novel features Glenn Dempster, the new police chief of a mill town, Verton, Pennsylvania. The union has been locked out of the mill for months, with increasing violence between the substitute workers and the desperate union men. Glenn is respected by him men, but not liked, and he only just barely won the vote against one of his own men for chief, but taking on the corruption of the previous chief as an issue. His marriage is in difficulty, and as the book opens, he is living in a small apartment in an extremely ill-kept building. His wife is using their young daughter, Heather as a pawn between them and Heather is just trying to keep her head down, both at home, and at school where she stands alone, with her father hated by both union blue collar and the white collar workers. Glenn's wife's father is the mayor and he has no love for Glenn, with his actions causing many of the issues in Glenn's marriage.
There is a lot of small town stuff going on here, with everyone putting their nose in everyone else's business and one café a no-man's ground for workers to eat and meet.
As the factory owners finally allow the union back to work, an explosion in the blast furnace reignites the issues between the sides, and has Glenn's team trying to find out what lies behind some of the actions.
Glenn is a loner, a local boy that just wants to do right and earn a living. He's smart but not always lucky, and he begins to wonder if he really has a future in this town.
I quite enjoyed this book and liked how the characters evolved over the course of the book, including young Heather.
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