It is the largest lake in the world. It is terrifying, and deadly.
There is no silt at the bottom, no soft bed to sleep in, no weeds to hide in. It is a lake lined in pure granite, a great rock crater carved into the ground by glaciers, filled with pure, sweet, cold water and not much else. A few whitefish. The splinters of broken wooden hulls. The silent steel walls of the Algoma, the Sunbeam, the Edmund Fitzgerald. The bones of the dead. The ghosts.
It is beautiful.
In that summer of secrets, this was the biggest secret of all. Those of us who live here all kept the secret. We guarded it closely, and shared it with those few people who could not live here for whatever reason, but still chose to come back here whenever they could.
I couldn’t have guessed that even this secret would be in jeopardy that summer. I couldn’t have even imagined it. How could one man ever threaten such a thing? One man.

Synopsis: 
Summer has finally arrived in Paradise, Michigan, but Alex McKnight doesn't seem to notice the change in the weather. He's been retreating into own his private world the past few months and now he barely leaves his cabin except to go have his meals in the nearby Glasgow Inn. The Inn's proprietor, Jackie, is more and more concerned with Alex's state, and the last straw comes as he watches Alex morosely counting up his "failures" on the eve of his 49th birthday-- his marriage, his baseball career, his stint in the Detroit police. He offers his friend an ultimatum: "Either I take you to the airport and put your ass on a plane to Moosehide or you play poker with me tonight."

The other poker players are men Alex hardly knows, in a posh house near the water. In the middle of the game, masked robbers invade the premises, hold the players at gunpoint and proceed to rob the homeowner. Alex is roused to action and so is his former detective partner, Leon Prudell. Working first against one another and later together, they discover that the crime is far more complex than a simple robbery. There is murder and greed and revenge involved, and a wild chase on the waters of Lake Superior before Alex is forced to realize that there is no retreat from life. And that maybe this is
a good thing.

Return to top

Reviews:

"Steve Hamilton writes the kind of stories that manly men and tough-minded women can't resist." 
-- The New York Times

"No longer a cop, inactive as a private eye, classic loner Alex McKnight has retreated to his lakeside cabin in this superb yarn, [and while] Alex McKnight would probably hate the idea, mysteries this good may make him extremely popular." 
-- Publishers Weekly, starred review

"If Hammett moved the detective story from the drawing room into the mean streets, Hamilton has proved that the north woods have their own potential for homicidal intrigue." 
-- J. Kingston Pierce, Amazon.com

"It isn't only the land that Hamilton understands so well, but the people who live on that land, too. His plots are anchored to human frailties and passions, to the relationships between friends and the commitments they make to one another. North of Nowhere unfolds with the convolutions and plot twists worthy of a best-selling mystery. Boasting good, upstanding residents and scenery that takes your breath away, Paradise is worth the visit."
-- Anthony Rainone, January Magazine

"If Steve Hamilton isn't careful, he'll bring an influx of new residents and development to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Like his former novels, Hamilton’s North of Nowhere is smooth. [It's] a book to settle down with, be it spring, summer or winter." 
-- Plots with Guns

"It grabbed me from the first page and kept me going right till the end. Every time I thought I had everything figured out, BAM, another twist." 
-- Books 'N Bytes

"Alex is at his best and the support cast augments the isolated feeling of going North Of Nowhere that shows why Steve Hamilton is an award-winning author."
-- Internet Book Watch

Return to top

Foreign Editions:
Steve Hamilton novels are printed world-wide. Here we present covers from foreign editions of North of Nowhere. 
Click on an image to view a larger picture.

Return to top