Winter in the Heart

Hemlock County #2

by David Poyer

W.T. Halvorsen, an innocent man, is being scapegoated for the crimes of the rich and the mighty. Dragged into a western Pennsylvania courtroom in chains and shackles, Halvorsen must convince a judge and jury that everything they know about their state, their government and their town's chief employer is a lie. His is a tale of organized crime and a corrupt oil company CEO who are dumping toxic waste into a quiet rural community for profit; of local officials who look the other way in hopes of saving their impoverished town; of one honest man who must fight for his life, his friends, his home, a man who must in the end convince the judge and jury of the truth - or die in prison. And if W.T. Halvorsen dies, everything he gave his life for will die with him.

Genres: Mystery

416 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Aka D.C. Poyer.

DAVID C. POYER was born in DuBois, PA in 1949. He grew up in Brockway, Emlenton, and Bradford, in western Pennsylvania, and graduated from Bradford Area High School in 1967. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1971, and later received a master's degree from George Washington University.

Poyer's active and reserve naval service included sea duty in the Atlantic, Mediterranean, Arctic, Caribbean, and Pacific, and shore duty at the Pentagon, Surface Warfare Development Group, Joint Forces Command, and in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. He retired in July 2001.

Poyer began writing in 1976, and is the author of nearly fifty books, including THE MED, THE GULF, THE CIRCLE, THE PASSAGE, TOMAHAWK, CHINA SEA, BLACK STORM, THE COMMAND, THE THREAT, KOREA STRAIT, THE WEAPON, THE CRISIS, THE CRUISER, TIPPING POINT, HUNTER KILLER, DEEP WAR, OVERTHROW, VIOLENT PEACE, ARCTIC SEA, and THE ACADEMY, best-selling Navy novels; THE DEAD OF WINTER, WINTER IN THE HEART, AS THE WOLF LOVES WINTER, THUNDER ON THE MOUNTAIN, and THE HILL, set in Western Pennsylvania; and HATTERAS BLUE, BAHAMAS BLUE, LOUISIANA BLUE, and DOWN TO A SUNLESS SEA, underwater diving adventure.

Other noteworthy books are THE ONLY THING TO FEAR, a historical thriller, THE RETURN OF PHILO T. McGIFFIN, a comic novel of Annapolis, and the three volumes of The Civil War at Sea, FIRE ON THE WATERS, A COUNTRY OF OUR OWN, and THAT ANVIL OF OUR SOULS. He's also written two sailing thrillers, GHOSTING and THE WHITENESS OF THE WHALE. His work has been published in Britain, translated into Japanese, Dutch, Italian, Hugarian, and Serbo-Croatian; recorded for audiobooks, iPod downloads, and Kindle, and selected by the Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club and other book clubs. Rights to several properties have been sold or optioned for films, and two novellas appeared in the Night Bazaar series of fantasy anthologies. Most recently, he's published two craft books, WRITING IN THE AGE OF AI and WRITING YOUR MEMOIR IN THE AGE OF AI.

Poyer has taught or lectured at Annapolis, Flagler College, University of Pittsburgh, Old Dominion University, the Armed Forces Staff College, the University of North Florida, Christopher Newport University, and other institutions. He has been a guest on PBS's "Writer to Writer" series and on Voice of America, and has appeared at the Southern Festival of Books and many other literary events. He taught in the MA/MFA in Creative Writing program at Wilkes University for sixteen years. He is currently core faculty at the Ossabaw Writers Retreat, a fellow of the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and a board member of the Northern Appalachia Review.

He lives on Virginia's Eastern Shore with novelist Lenore Hart.

Reviews

[Deb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent series, truly capturing the wildness which still exists in northern Appalachia.

[Adam Nelson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was on the verge of giving this book 2 stars, but then I remembered that I enjoyed reading it up until the end. Oh, and consider this a spoiler warning in case you clicked on through to read the review after I hid it. I'm going to have to talk about the way this book ends, as well as other key plot points. First off, I love the character of Racks Halvorsen. I love that even into the third book (which I'm now reading, although with trepidation), Poyer hangs his story around a man who seems more ancient than the mountains he lives in. Halvorsen is so well drawn that you feel you are living in his skin, soaking the cold deep into your bones as it is sunk into his. Halvorsen is grizzled and fading, but he retains enough marbles to know what's right more than any other character in the book. He isn't motivated by a sense of humanity. It's more complicated than that. His actions arise out of a sense of what the morality of the situation requires. Thunder Oil is dumping toxic waste on the road, and it's just not right. He doesn't think on how it affects the community. Halvorsen mostly wants nothing to do with the community or the people in it. He has kind of a shepherding love for the kid, Phil, but it's not so cut and dried as calling it a father-son or grandfather-grandson relationship. Their both bound by a mutual disgust with Thunder, for their various reasons. I liked the part where Halvorsen prevents Phil's suicide attempt and holds him as he's crying. It's about as touching as Halvorsen gets, but it's all you need to see to know that you can trust Racks to be a good, solid man. He's not somebody you want to spend much time around, and he'd probably have no use for you, but he's a good man. I also like how this book was quite different from the first in the Hemlock County series, in which the environmental stuff motivated the misguided killer's revenge spree against hunters. It's more at the forefront here. Phil and Racks are acting to end a practice that is poisoning the water and the ground and making people sick, but there are still those essential elements of a thriller that keep this engaging regardless of how you feel politically about big oil (in fact, "big oil" as some sort of villainy in itself is not at issue here). In the end, however, I'm mad at Poyer. First, the lesser reason--Phil's death. I didn't want him to die. It made me mad he did, but not at Poyer. I was mad at the bad guys who shot him. I'm mad at Poyer, however, because we don't see much of Racks' reaction to Phil's death or how his parents or Jaysine felt about it. Phil died, too bad. Not cool. This character was mercilessly bullied and ostracized at school. We need a bit more communal reaction than just that the bullies served as pallbearers at his funeral (that was, admittedly, a nice touch). The more grievous part is when Williamina dies as her father's car is singing into the oil pit (or whatever it was). This part most CERTAINLY deserved more revelation of how it affected all the characters. I would have liked to know how Ainslee reacted, since she abused the poor girl throughout the book. I wanted to know how Racks felt. I wanted that tragedy to haunt him until his dying day, to change him forever. There's not even the hint of this kind of effect on his psyche at the beginning of As the Wolf Loves Winter. Thus, Willie's death feels exploitative. I feel insulted as a reader, that Poyer just wanted to shock by killing off a little girl you fell in love with the moment you saw her. He wanted to make you care, break your heart, then get out of dodge. This is irresponsible. I don't like it when kids die in books because I'm a dad, which makes me love all children pretty much by default. But I know it happens, that this is just fiction. What disgusts me is when their death is treated cheaply like Poyer did. If you're going to kill a sweet little girl, you better be ready to show how it destroys everyone involved. I'm reading the third book in the series now and giving Poyer another chance. By and large, I enjoy his writing, but he better not do this to me again.

[Dale · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read - not really a courtroom thriller

Synopsis: The story of a small Pennsylvania oil town that has seen its better days and some of the unique characters that come together to expose a devious plan to dump toxic wastes into the surrounding countryside.

My review: This is a great read. It is advertised as a courtroom thriller but that is just as accurate as saying the movie The Princess Bride is a childhood bedtime story. True, it is, but it is so much more. In this case, the story is framed by about 10 pages of courtroom stuff just to give the story a bit of context, but it really is just a plain old novel - with all the foibles and follies that accompany good character creation.

Read all of my reviews at: http://dwdsreviews.blogspot.com/

[Marianne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Departure for me with Poyer's books. this was a bit dark. I am familiar with the area, so I am aware of the economic conditions, albeit for a later time period. I sort of wonder if so many of the people in that area are that malleable. Greed knows no bounds.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Took a while to get into the story...a lot of characters at the beginning to sort out and then once they come together the story runs more smoothly...would make a good movie...

[Jackie Simons]

Read 4/98

[Joseph King · Rating 2 out of 5]

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