BRATTLEBORO-The Brattleboro Literary Festival invites all to listen on Friday, June 21, at 5:30 p.m., for a Literary Cocktail Hour, online and free, featuring New York Times bestselling author Thomas E. Ricks, author of Everyone Knows But You: A Tale of Murder on the Maine Coast.
"In this riveting crime debut," write organizers in a news release, "Ricks turns his literary talents to land he knows deeply from working in the Maine woods and trapping lobsters year-round."
An FBI agent finds himself in the insular world of a fishing village on the Maine coast where the rules are different-sometimes lethally so. After his wife and two children are killed in a car crash, Ryan Tapia starts a new life in Maine. But his first case there is a puzzling oddball-the corpse of a fisherman washes up on federal land while the man's boat drifts into waters that are part of a tribal reservation.
Ryan quickly learns the nuances of Maine life as he delves into two illicit coastal trades: hard drugs and rare fish. Many of the locals are happy to see that particular fisherman dead. What's more, they are not shy about noting that Ryan must have screwed up pretty badly to be posted to such a remote location as Bangor, Maine.
Publisher's Weekly said of the book "A crackling procedural about a grieving FBI agent who sets out to solve a murder in Maine. The sturdy whodunit plot is enriched by the author's firm grasp of his setting and a colorful cast of New Englanders who never veer into caricature. A sequel would be welcome."
Ricks serves as an adviser on national security at the New America Foundation, where he participates in its "Future of War" project. As a reporter at The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, he was a member of two teams that won the Pulitzer Prize.
Ricks is the author of several books, including The Generals, The Gamble, and the No. 1 New York Times bestseller Fiasco, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
He worked in the Maine woods in his youth and trapped lobsters when living on an island in Penobscot Bay. He now divides his time between Texas and Maine.
To register for this event, go to bit.ly/LitCocktail39.
This Arts item was submitted to The Commons.