Customer Reviews

The Hanging Tree: A Starvation Lake Mystery (Starvation Lake Mysteries)

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My claim in a movie review formerly featured on another website of how recent genres of fiction has treated the game of hockey, I held out the hope that someday someone would find the perfected formula to meld hockey and fiction. What it took was a new author Mr. Bryan Gruley to spotlight our sport in the way it was meant. As I re stacked my fantasy demon hunter paperbacks on the nightstand aside my bed, I became eager to delve into a more familiar world of journalism, hockey, and profound mystery.

Despite not having read the introductory novel, Starvation Lake, I wasn't to overly concerned that I was missing the crucial development of the series. Mr. Gruley's second book, The Hanging Tree takes off and hits the ground running re-introducing the main character in a passionate love affair, literally, from the opening pages. An ex-teammate's estranged wife gets the main character, Gus Carpenter, dangerously close to a real life game misconduct penalty, but still manages to toe the blue line with him helping the investigation of a woman whom they both grew up with.

Even through the eyes of the main character, Gus Carpenter, the real sympathy lies within the victim Grace McBride. Mr. Gruley was able to create a character through back story so deep that I actually felt like I was mourning her loss. As the plot develops, so does Gracie's mythology comparable to the now famous "Laura Palmer" of the Twin Peaks TV series. Most detective mysteries that I have read, the victim is usually someone expendable. But not Grace. Mr. Gruley successfully stirs the readers emotions believing that Grace McBride, the once-long lost sheep, didn't deserve the way she died. Justice for her was going to come from Gus and the family she left who loved her.

The next thing that I loved about this book is the steady pacing. Mr. Gruley most under-noticed talent is his descriptive pacing that makes readers feel that the town itself, "Starvation Lake", is an important character. The reader is locked in to the small Great Lakes town world where the air is cold and heavy in winter, but the gossip news travels like mercury. It's a town in the middle of a transition from being the accustomed neighborhood to the remote getaway destination of the well-to-do. But just as the native residents grumble at the influx of new money, they debate among themselves on the need for a fancy new hockey arena or stay loyal to the familiar old barn that housed many junior state hockey championships.

As far as the hockey action goes, Mr. Gruley masterfully worked in the hockey action as it was intrinsic to the plot. I like the reality shown within the story that not every player who laces up get to move on to the pro ranks. The town's arena is the perfect metaphor for the boulevard of broken dreams.

I would recommend this book to all when it goes on sale in bookstores August 3rd. It was meant to be enjoyed by hockey enthusiasts, journalist writers, and everybody else who had to return home and start over again.

The Hanging Tree is another well-crafted mystery from writer Bryan Gruley. It is a sequel to Starvation Lake, but you don't need to have read Starvation Lake to enjoy The Hanging Tree. This story hits the ground running and never lets up.
Mr. Gruley's characterizations of the citizens of the small town are superb. All sorts of quirky characters abound. The protagonist, Gus, is a man the reader can truly relate to and root for. And every time you think you've got the mystery figured out, Mr. Gruley throws another curve ball into the mix.
His descriptions of the small-town, amateur hockey games are also enlightening and told from the prospective of someone who really knows and loves the game.
If you're looking for an intriguing, well-written, adult mystery, one that is not your typical cops and villains story, look no further than The Hanging Tree. After you've read it, go back and read the first book in this wonderful series, Starvation Lake. It, too, is excellent.

My father spent this summers growing up on a little lake in the south of Michigan. Although this was many decades before the setting of the Starvation Lake series, in Bryan Gruley's books I hear the same echos of small town hopes, dreams and disappointments. He artfully captures the simple moments of life which can have a huge and unexpected impact on the lives of those immediately touched plus some you'd never expect to be moved by the outward ripples. It resonates as true, the details real. The namesake object of this second novel in the series is the perfect example: a small-town staple becomes the focus of a deep and absorbing mystery.

Gruley's writing goes below the surface to explore the simple acts of betrayal, love, doubt and friendship we all harbor. His characters, even the minor ones, always have qualities and contradictions that simply ring true.

How good is this book? I write books myself and while on deadline for one, I ended up shutting myself away for a day and reading The Hanging Tree cover to cover.

Tense and poignant at the same time.

I really liked this novel, mostly because the main character, Gus, is more than a little bit stubborn and hardheaded and when you add hockey into that mix there really isn't much not to love about the entire novel. I am a huge fan of the way that Gruley has Gus realize that even though he has lived with his cousin/de facto sister, Grace, for most of his life he doesn't know her. As he talks to "The Tramp" and Soupy he realizes that he really never knew her, he was just making assumptions and filling in the rest with what he wanted to believe, things that many of us are guilty of every day. It just took her dying and him prying into her life and ticking off several people for him to be able to see what had been in front of him the entire time, which is always sad. The landscape of the book is starkly drawn and when you are reading it you can see it in your mind cast with the grays and dreariness that (I think) would encompass Starvation Lake in the winter and it makes for a good read. I feel ashamed to say that I missed his first book but I'll be fixing that soon.

As is the case in most small towns, there is always more to the story and everybody is connected somehow. Not only is Gracie's fate the hot topic of coffee conversation in the local diner, her death matters to the main women in Gus' life. Gracie was his cousin and her death matters to his mother and she was his main squeeze's bestfriend...discovering what led to Gracie's death proves more than just a news story that Gus must write about for the town's local paper, The Pilot. As he begins to investigate the clues surrounding her death, Gus must travel down old roads that lead to his past and face some of the embarrassment he thought was more manageable in the small town of Starvation Lake.


There is something I love about Starvation Lake that I can't quite put my finger on. The quirky residents are what I would call a more normal version of "Twin Peaks" and Gracie was one of their "Laura Palmer's". Gruley's characters are excellent and engaging. I love Gus and his relationship with Darlene. There is a scene at the beginning of chapter one where the two characters are interacting playfully and I could see the whole scene so vividly in my mind and was blushing a bit by the intimacy that I was witnessing. Gruley really captures the essence of these small town characters in the desriptions he has so skillfully constructed.


Mystery lovers will not be disappointed. "The Hanging Tree" is a captivating and intriguing sophmore novel and the Starvation Lake series is one that will lure readers in and hold their interest hostage in it's pages from cover to cover!

This is the first book I have read by Bryan Gruley and I now am a humongous fan! He's right up there with my favorite authors. His writing captured me and it was like I was in a trance throughout the whole book. I have to get my hands on Starvation Lake. Any mystery lover will come to appreciate the characters as well as the plot.

It's not easy writing a second series novel, but Bryan Gruley's new visit to Starvation Lake has equalled the first. The Hanging Tree has an inventive plot and plenty of twists along the way. I don't care much for hockey, but love the hockey stories here. It's an added bonus for Gruley to toss in a hateful publisher. Huzzah.

Bryan Gruley scored with his first mystery, Starvation Lake, that earned him Edgar nominations for best first mystery and best paperback original from the Mystery Writers of America. Now he's got himself two winners. The Hanging Tree again features Gus Carpenter, who works for the Pine County Pilot, the local newspaper in Starvation Lake. Carpenter had been first an acclaimed and later a disgraced reporter in Detroit before he returned to the community where he grew up. To the locals, he will always be known as the goalie who let in a soft goal and cost Starvation Lake its best chance of winning a State hockey championship.
Hockey again plays a major role in Gruley's second novel, but readers with no interest in the sport shouldn't be turned off by that. It's an excellent mystery that revolves around two plot lines. Carpenter has been writing articles suggesting that a man who promised to build a new hockey rink doesn't have the funds to complete it. Locals see his work as detrimental to the community and his employer isn't happy. In the current environment where so many newspaper s are in jeopardy, his job could be on the chopping block. Around the same time, Gracie McBride, who was the best friend of Carpenter's girl friend, deputy sheriff Darlene Esper, in high school, commits suicide by hanging herself from a tree. Neither Gus or Darlene are convinced it was suicide and Gus travels back to Detroit to try to discover what brought Gracie back to Starvation Lake after 18 years in the Motor City. While they both lived there, Gus had tried to contact Gracie at the request of his mother who had befriended her as a young girl. But Gracie always found a way to beg off and he never knew what she did for a living in Detroit. Going back to Detroit also forces Gus to face up to his past.
Characterization is a strength of Gruley's two novels as he manages to make the reader care not only about Gus and his friends such as Darlene and his hockey-playing, bar-owning buddy Soupy Campbell, but also some who in the reader's eyes may not deserve it. He also does a fine job of capturing life in a small rural community where everyone knows everyone else's business and relationships are complex.

Pine County executive editor Gus Carpenter of the newspaper the Pilot reports to Philo Beach, an editor seven years younger than him. Philo's uncle, the News North CEO, directed his nephew to get the newspaper's finances in line. The latest big story is that Grace McBride committed suicide by hanging herself on the Hanging Tree. Grace went down state from her Michigan small town for a number of years before coming home.

The townsfolk are less interested in the hometown girl's death now that there is a new ice hockey rink coming to Starvation that Laird Haskell, who moved there with his wife and brilliant hockey goalie son, is funding. Gus hears rumors that contractors working on the skating rink are not being paid and Laird needs a $100,000 loan from the town until he can fix his finances. Determined to prove Grace did not kill herself, Gus investigates learning the woman was involved with some nasty folks from Detroit. He follows the trail as if Grace set it up for him to do so. Her clues lead full circle back to their hometown where Gus, his girlfriend Deputy Sheriff Darlene Esper and Philo team up and try to bring justice to a dead woman who never had any when she lived.

The return to Starvation Lake is an exhilarating whodunit as the investigative lead finds himself with a happy and a strange bedfellow. Gus is an unusual individual in that he does not allow whatever life tosses at him to get inside his stomach; readers can visualize him singing Matthew Strider's tune "Ain't Nothing Going to Break My Stride." Readers will join him and his two sleuthing partners in this entertaining Michigan murder mystery.

Harriet Klausner

Often times the second novel in a series lags behind the quality of the introductory one, the groundwork has all been laid, the novelty of the premise has worn off a bit but the author has not quite hit his stride. That is not the case here.THE HANGING TREE picks up the story of Gus Carpenter, his family and friends in the small town of Starvation Lake, Michigan. Once again while investigating a story for the local newspaper Gus has uncovered some information that has put him at odds with both the rest of the town and the owners of the paper. This time the conflict arose over the generous offer of a newcomer to the community to build a new ice rink. The townspeople were delighted to replace the dilapidated rink and to just maybe help the local hockey team regain their former glory. The owners of the newspaper saw the benefactor and the rink as a way to bolster the sagging local economy, and the paper's revenues. Nobody wanted to have Gus blow the whole thing by asking his annoying questions. The investigation took a back seat though when Gus's cousin Grace was discovered hanging from a tree. Was her death a suicide or a murder? The more Gus dug into either issue the more it became apparent that the two lines of inquiries were related. It was not at all clear though just how the local benefactor, a big shot lawyer from Detroit was connected with a local drunk who drove the zamboni. As Gus continued to dig more old secrets and scandals were uncovered, some of them quite close to home.

Once again author Grunley has managed to bring to life the feel of life in a small, isolated community, the impact on the local residents of a dying economy while telling an exciting story. Gus continues in his own path of redemption that began in STARVATION LAKE as he struggles to put his past failures behind him. It is an indication of the author's skill that he manages to weave these elements of character development in while still telling a challenging mystery tale. This reader is waiting to hear what will happen next to Gus and the town of Starvation Lake.