Christine Carbo, The Wild Inside

The Wild Inside is the first in a series of police procedurals by Christine Carbo. The book is written in the first person and follows Ted Systead, a special agent with the Department of the Interior's National Parks Service, as he investigates a murder-cum-bear-mauling in Montana's Glacier National Park.

Ted works out of Denver, but this crime has him back where he grew up. The case hits close to home in a more figurative way as well: When Ted was fourteen, his father was dragged by a bear from the tent they were sharing and mauled to death. This case has Ted facing the memories he's mostly suppressed in the twenty-odd years since his father's screams stopped.

The murder Ted's investigating is somewhat interesting; the book's setting is more so: I haven't read a crime novel that plays out in this kind of wilderness before. I liked Ted and his ad hoc partner Monty as characters.

The writing was fine. It was a pleasant read. Still, I'm not sure I'm eager to jump into another in the series. The book felt long. There are no great dramatic moments in the story. We just follow the day-to-day investigation and Ted's struggles with his past until both find some resolution in the end.

So maybe some day I'll reach for the second book in the series, but not for a while.