Susan Froetschel’s novel Interruptions is set on an Alaskan island. It includes some of the same characters as her novel Alaska Gray (see my review here) but can definitely be read as a stand-alone story.
The story centres on Marcy and her husband Davy, and their twelve-year-old son Gavan. There is a plan to build a road across the island and Marcy is one of the most voluble opponents of the idea, which makes her very visible to the community as a whole and especially her opponents. Gavan and his young friend decide to travel into the wilderness to spy on the road engineer who is undertaking environmental checks, but the trip ends in tragedy and the engineer disappears. Meanwhile, Marcy is receiving threats and feels that she has no option other than to leave the island to keep her family safe.
This is an interesting story with a number of different strands. Marcy recruits a troubled, but effective, private investigator to come and find out what is going on and she also does a bit of investigation herself. Her husband and son struggle without Marcy but Gavan persists in investigating for himself and puts his own life in danger. The family begin to suspect all those around them and are not sure who they can trust. Marcy and Davy also have a big secret which might have been discovered by people who wish to threaten them.
This is an excellent crime thriller, with lots of red herrings. The author tries to show the advantages and disadvantages of a road being built in such and environment and gives both sides a voice in this story. The environment and landscape, and how we preserve them, are an important part of the story.
I enjoyed this a lot.
