Synopses & Reviews
As
Skookum Summer begins, the year is 1981, and reporter Tom Dawson slinks back to his tiny Puget Sound hometown after making a disastrous mistake at the
LA Times. Working reluctantly at the local weekly, the
Big Skookum Echo, Tom is drawn into investigating a powerful logger's murder.
As the mystery deepens, the murder exposes the strains on the community as pollution, development, and global change threaten traditional Northwest livelihoods. It also forces Tom to confront his own past and discover what home really means to him. Hart weaves together a gripping and suspenseful plot with richly observed Pacific Northwest history and a vivid picture of a community on the brink of change.
Review
"A highly skilled writer with a love of the Northwest, Hart paints a strong and vivid portrait of an important era in Northwest history, when we went from logging and fishing to software and finance." William Dietrich, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter at the Seattle Times and author of The Final Forest
Review
"Hart's debut is both a compelling mystery and a serious work of literature about coming of age, the dying newspaper business, and changes sweeping the Pacific Northwest forests. The writing is lyrical and the landscape is so expertly drawn that readers will be transported there even if they never leave their houses." Bruce DeSilva, former Associate Press senior editor and author of Providence Rag.
Review
"Skookum is a Pacific Northwest Indian word that translates to 'powerful,' 'splendid,' or 'memorable.' Jack Hart's prose is skookum. So is this novel." Richard Hoyt, author of Darwin's Secret
Review
"Skookum Summer has the pleasing rhythm of an old fashioned movie and serves as an engaging ode to the dark and charming twilight of Northwest logging towns. In Jack Hart's capable hands, his novel somehow juggles murder and romance, meth labs and fly fishing, journalistic ethics and small-town ethos, all with aplomb." Jim Lynch, author of Truth Like the Sun
Review
"Jack Hart knows the Pacific Northwest waters and woods and characters as if he grew up on Puget Sound and still lives there, which he did and does. Skookum Summer features a hotshot young newshound stalking the bad guys — log rustlers and meth cookers — but it's even more a book about place. Hart nails it." Robin Cody, author of Ricochet River
About the Author
Jack Hart is a former managing editor and writing coach at the Oregonian and the author of Storycraft: The Complete Guide to Writing Narrative Nonfiction.