Grizzly murder mystery

When writers of mysteries place their stories in a certain location — London, Paris, New York City or Southern California, for example — the locale often becomes part of the story, almost as if it were another character. And so it is with Christine Carbo's The Wild Inside (2015), the first in a series of novels set in and around Glacier National Park.

Ted Systeed, her main character, spent his early youth in Florida, as the author did herself. Then the family moved to Montana, where when he was 14 his father was mauled and killed by a grizzly bear while the two of them were camping in the park. Years later Ted is a special agent for the Department of the Interior.

When a dead man is found in Glacier bound to a tree, and shot, then partially eaten by a bear, Ted is called in to investigate. The location of the crime, so near to where his father was killed, and the fact that the crime involves a grizzly bear impacts him profoundly, making it difficult for him to focus on the puzzling case.

And it doesn't help that the man in charge of the park is the same one who years before had falsely cited carelessness as a contributing factor in Ted's father's death. Nor does it help that the grizzly apparently swallowed the bullet that was in the victim. Will the bear have to be sacrificed to retrieve that bullet?

Carbo nicely balances the detective work with the personal drama, while giving everyone a big surprise at the end.