Sometimes the Wolf

Finished July 16

Sometimes the Wolf by Urban Waite

This dark novel is set in the northwest U.S., and centers around deputy sheriff Bobby Drake. Twelve years previous to the events in the novel, Bobby's father Patrick had been sheriff. Bobby had been away at university. Bobby's mother had been ill, and Patrick had taken to some illegal acts for money. He was caught and convicted, and is now coming out of jail. 

Bobby has agreed, reluctantly, to take his father in for a short time until he gets on his feet. Bobby's wife Sheri is agreeable to it as well. They will give him the room they had prepared for another purpose, which has a single bed in it. 

Bobby has been working with the local wildlife office with a situation involving a local wolf. The wolf has had some interactions with local farmers and has been blamed for some without solid proof, and the wildlife officer Ellie is planning to capture and tag the wolf so that they can track it and be aware of its whereabouts. 

Patrick seems a little wary once out, thinking that other cars are following them, or that people are watching them, and Bobby has put it down as part of the experience of getting out of prison, and not being used to the freedom and open space that now exists for him. 

Bobby also holds a lot of resentment towards his father. He quit university, came home, sold some of the land to save the house, and now lives in that house with his own wife, and works for his father's old deputy, who is now sheriff. 

Soon after his release, men from his past do appear in Patrick's life, and Bobby and Sheri are at risk. The federal agent who has been on Patrick's case from the beginning has also reappeared, and his presence raises other questions. 

This is a dark story, of fathers and sons, of guilt and the weight of it on those close to us, and of revenge. It is a fast-paced story with lots of action and suspense. 

Nothing Left to Mend

Finished April 16
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.