Customer Reviews

Heaven's Fury: A Novel

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The hero? seems so confused and unsure about everything, especially with his ex-girlfriend. His wife was a shadowy person. I didn't feel like I ever got to know any of these people. The author did an excellent job describing the area. Too bad he didnt do the same for the characters. for any woman who has a husband force her to her knees, and put a gun to her head his cheating on her should be the least of her worries. this man certainly is off center and no hero.

This book is not up to previous Frey novels and will probably be the last of his books I will purchase. I wonder if he has now hired others to ghostwrite for him.

The author must have spent some time in Northern Wisconsin--it's as if the place names have been changed to protect the innocent/guilty. His fictional town must have been modeled on Brule Wisconsin. I enjoyed the novel and felt the plot stood on it's own merits but having grown up in that part of the country I was very familier with old estates and lodges along the Brule river as well as the wide gulf between the owners and the locals--making the novel a compelling must read for me.

If you are ever up that way be sure to rent a canoe for a trip down the Brule river--beautiful!

With HEAVEN'S FURY, Stephen Frey takes yet another step away from the financial thrillers for which he is primarily known. While not containing his best writing, it is certainly one of the most interesting stories that he has told to date.

HEAVEN'S FURY is set almost entirely in Bruner, Wisconsin, a rural town that is split right down the middle between the "haves" and the "have-not-quite-so-much." The "haves" consist of the wealthy families who own magnificent summer homes on one side of the town and exercise a de facto control over the entire municipality, even when they are absent. The other half is given over to the year-round residents who work the temporary residents, as it were. Paul Summers is Bruner's sheriff, a position that he was more or less jammed into. He has had a checkered law enforcement career that has been on a downward trajectory due to a series of set-ups that have resulted in his returning to his hometown to take the less-than-glorious position he occupies.

A great deal of the reason for his misfortune can be laid at the feet of Lewis Prescott, one of the summer residents. Summers got crossways with Prescott when Summers was the star quarterback at the local high school and fell under the spell of Prescott's daughter, Cindy. Prescott broke up the romance and has been riding Summers ever since, even after Cindy's marriage to a highly influential politician with presidential aspirations. Summers married Vivian, a woman with a checkered past and a moody disposition who is all too well aware that her husband still has feelings for his high school lover. The already simmering situation explodes when Cindy is found brutally murdered at the Prescott estate, the victim of an apparent ritual execution.

The death hits Summers personally and professionally, given his long-unresolved relationship with the victim, his status as lead investigator, and the fact that he was the last person to see Cindy before she died. Worse, Prescott seems set on both hijacking and subverting the investigation. It appears, given the ritual aspect of Cindy's murder and other mysterious events in the town, that a cult is operating in the area. Yet Prescott wants the evidence "scrubbed" of any cult involvement, for reasons best known to himself. Summers is a complicated man, prone to error and more likely to be buffeted by events than to get proactive and control situations. Still, he is a dogged investigator, and as he slowly begins to put together the reasons behind Cindy's murder and Prescott's behavior, he uncovers a simmering cauldron of greed, betrayal and revenge that threatens to explode the uneasy, deceptively tranquil atmosphere of the rural Wisconsin town that he has called home.

While Frey does not seem entirely surefooted during HEAVEN'S FURY, with the change of scenery and topic that held sway over his earlier work, there is an extremely interesting mystery at the core of his story that keeps the book and the reader moving. Frey also utilizes an interesting literary tool wherein he ends each chapter on a (more or less) cliffhanger, the resolution of which is subsequently answered at some point in the next chapter or beyond. While this does not work every time, it certainly propels the storyline along so that there is never really a place where one wants to stop reading. And that pretty much says it all.

As I've noted, there are some weaknesses, including a couple of holes in the plot and Summers himself, who I just could never quite get a handle upon. These are minor quibbles, however, given the quality of the overall story and setting, which should keep Frey's fans happy and bring some new readers to the fold as well.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

See book summaries above.
People are dying under mysterious ways. The main question is whether it's cult related or merely a red herring? Stephen Frey does a fantastic job of creating an atmospheric location to his latest mystery/thriller. Being from the north, I can relate to the winter described in this novel. That being said, it doesn't break a lot of new ground as far as originality goes. There are a few surprises and it's still well written. I think most fans will appreciate the story but just not call it one of his best.