This Fallen Prey

The season may have officially started two months ago, but it isn't truly spring in Rockton until we bury our winter dead.

Kelley Armstrong is a local author to me, and not only has she been lovely to meet while visiting the book store where I work, but I see her name everywhere I turn around in the store itself: she has written dozens of titles that are on display in YA, Fantasy, Horror, and like with This Fallen Prey, she can also be found in the Mystery section. So it's about time I read some of her work, eh? Now, genre fiction wouldn't usually be my thing – which would probably explain why I haven't read Armstrong before now – so I don't have much in the Thriller department to compare this to, but I did find this book to be compelling and propulsive. The mystery keeps you guessing until the end, and with nearly every chapter ending on a cliffhanger, I always had that “just one more chapter” feeling as I went along. I didn't find much deep or illuminating in this read, but I was certainly entertained. (Note: I read an ARC and quotes may not be in their final forms.)

Too much to think about. It's a puzzle of configuration, and each piece in it has two sides – guilt or innocence – and the meaning changes depending upon which side I pick up. If Brady is innocent, then x. If he is a monster, then y. Two ways of looking at everything, leading to two ways of investigating.

Stop. Focus.

I didn't realise until I went to add this title to Goodreads that it's actually the third installment in the Casey Duncan Series, but since Armstrong deftly refers back to events from the earlier books, I wasn't too lost: Rockton is an off-the-grid/off-the-books primitive townsite in the far north of the Yukon Territory, and through some arrangement with an offsite Council, people with shadowy pasts are brought here to escape or heal or just start over. As This Fallen Prey begins, a young man is flown into Rockton, bound and gagged, and what serves as the law enforcement in town soon discovers that he's the serial killer son of a billionaire who wants him to be kept on ice for the next six months. This arrangement is unprecedented – the town has no facilities for dealing with a thrill killer who might be a threat to its residents – but the Sheriff, Eric, and his Detective, Casey, have no power against the far away Council and the million dollar fee they've been promised. As soon as Brady's gag is removed, he starts protesting his innocence – saying his stepfather framed him to get at his inheritance – and as events happen, fraught and dangerous at every turn, each incident could be interpreted in two ways: Brady is either an innocent man fighting for his life and freedom, or he's the depraved sociopath he's made out to be. The scales were never really weighted one way or the other as the plot progressed, so I got to have the interesting meta-experience of trying to decide which way I hoped it would turn out, while knowing that at every turn, literally anything could happen. I guess that's what makes it a thriller. 

If we keep telling ourselves there's a logical explanation, we're going to end up on the business end of a gun, finding out there isn't.

Most of the plot takes place just outside of Rockton, in the far north boreal forest, and in addition to the threat of grizzly and cougars and unpredictable wolf-dogs, anyone who ventures out into Armstrong's woods might also confront loners, First Settlers, or primitives; people who take their anti-civilisation philosophies to various extremes. In a setting teeming with dangers, the action is constant with flashing knives, stray bullets, and the odd dangling from a ledge by one's fingertips. Although I haven't read the earlier books in this series, this one evidently continues the romance between Eric and Casey, evolves the relationship between Rockton and the Council, and introduces a playful eighty pound Newfoundlander puppy for added pathos. As I said, Armstrong does a good job of catching the reader up on what has gone before, but if I had a complaint it would be that there were too many background characters for me to keep straight – and although their stories also progress, it would be impossible for Armstrong to put every detail about every character into every book in this series; and yes, this book ends in a way that suggests the series will continue.

In the end, This Fallen Prey wasn't my favourite kind of book, but I knew that going in and it wouldn't be fair to judge it by that. I was entertained and remained intrigued, so it feels successful on those counts. Ultimately, I'm just pleased to have finally set foot in one of Kelley Armstrong's many worlds.