Smugglers Notch

A brutal murder with savage rape comes to the snowy heart of Vermont's Green Mountains. Young sheriff's lieutenant Larry St Germain has no doubts, but knowing the enemy and bringing him to justice, prove to be two very different things. By the author of "Floater" and "Little Odessa".

     Larry St. Germain is a brash, brawny sheriff's lieutenant, second-in-command of a county police force in Vermont's rugged Green Mountains. In an area where brutal crime is virtually unknown, the pretty teenage daughter of the state's attorney is found grotesquely slain in a snowy woodland, victim of a savage rapist. Through brilliant, unconventional detective work, St. Germain identifies the killer as Paul Conklin, a youthful religious fanatic from the Champlain Valley. The arrest should be a snap for the cocky lieutenant. But, up against a resourceful criminal whom he tragically underestimates, he commits a blunder that culminates in the death of his partner and his resignation in disgrace from the department he had hoped to head. After Conklin escapes from prison, leading a gang of homicidal marauders on a hellbent dash for the Canadian border, St. Germain faces one more fatal surprise--a lethal showdown on the icy crags of Smugglers Notch.
          Here's a novel of chilling authenticity with all the hallmarks of a remarkable talent in crime writing. Underpinning it all is a serious exploration of a man's quest to regain his honor and self-worth. The New York Times Book Review called Joseph Koenig's previous novel, Little Odessa,  "a superior piece of work . . . highly readable, beautifully written," and Kirkus Reviews called it an "engrossing novel that . . . slickly mixes thrills, humor, and romance." In Smugglers Notch the author more than lives up to this praise and reaffirms his place as one of the best new American crime writers.