Bitterfrost:
Book 1
River Deep
Book 2
Bryan Gruley
Severn House Publisher
Bitterfrost and River Deep blends crime fiction, a mystery, and legal thriller all wrapped up in a biting midwestern noir atmosphere. The small town has secrets that run deep and cold and ice hockey serves as a central focus of the community.
The plot of Bitterfrost begins with Jimmy Baker on his kitchen floor with his hands and clothes covered in blood and no memory of the night before. He soon learns that witnesses and forensic evidence have linked him to a double murder that took place in the hours he can’t remember.
His past comes back to haunt him. A former hockey star, Jimmy Baker quit the game after almost killing an opponent. Now he is the Zamboni driver for the amateur team in his hometown of Bitterfrost, Michigan, living in penance. Given his violent reputation, he is accused of murdering two men that were at the same bar as himself. Needing legal representation, Jimmy calls on his old friend Devyn Payne, a defense attorney, who persuades her wealthy mother, Eleanor, to post $250,000 for Jimmy’s bail.
River Deep has Defense Attorney Devyn Payne switching sides, now working for the prosecution team. Her first case is prosecuting a mother accused of drowning her twin sons. An SUV is submerged in the Jako River, appearing to have left the icy road and gone into the water. In the car were Catriona Dulaney, her husband Sammy Hardt, and their eight-month-old twin sons. Catriona and Sammy survive, but their sons do not.
The prosecution brings a well-regarded behavioral psychologist, a man who specializes in homicide-related investigations, to interview Catriona. Devyn believes that the psychologist made up his mind from the moment he walked into the room that Catriona is guilty of deliberately killing the infants and that all his questions and comments are designed to get her to confess. That finally happens, seven hours into the questioning, when Catriona cries, “My God. What have I done?” But Devyn isn’t convinced of her guilt. She abruptly switches sides to take on Catriona’s defense.
These books are a slow burn, suspenseful, crime mystery. The stories are told from multiple points of view. Hidden resentments, longstanding grudges, and the dynamics of small-town life rise to the surface as the investigation deepens.
Elise Cooper: How did you get the idea for the series?
Bryan Gruley: I didn’t really think of it as a series at first. I was just going do the one book, Bitterfrost. I also knew I wanted to set it in a little town in Northern Michigan. I thought, well, maybe if somebody likes it, they’ll want me to write another one. As it turned out, my agent did not like Bitterfrost after she read a third of it. But I had other writer friends who read it and they said, ‘She’s wrong. You should finish it.’ And so, I sold it on my own to Severn House. They asked me for a pitch for a second book, River Deep. I went back to the first book and inserted some of the characters from River Deep, so they’d be at least vaguely familiar to the reader. And then, a few months ago, they asked me for two more. So, I’m writing the third one now.
EC: How did you get the idea for Bitterfrost?
BG: It came from two different real-world stories. This guy named Bertuzzi played forward years ago in the NHL. And he got in a fight with a guy named Stephen Moore. He inflicted injuries so grave that Moore never played again. I’m a hockey player, so I was familiar with this story and wondered a lot about it, and eventually I started thinking, how do you cope with the possibility that you’ve ruined somebody’s life? Some bad choice was made, and somebody suffers because of it. To address that question, if not answer it, I invented Jimmy. Baker.
EC: What about the other real-world story that influenced the book?
BG: In Mio Michigan, in the 80s, these two guys were driving up to go hunting, supposedly, and they got hammered. And they ended up hassling some barmaid there. They ran into the wrong people, and they were never seen again, with their bodies never found. Eventually three brothers, who lived in that area, are now in prison, but it took 17 or 18 years to solve the case. It’s documented in a really good book called Darker Than Night by Tom Henderson. I put those two real-life events together for Bitterfrost.
EC: How did you get the idea for the second book, River Deep?
BG: For River Deep, it’s a little simpler. In 1989, a guy named Larry Delisle, drove his wife, and their four young children, into the Detroit River. The kids all drowned but Delisle and his wife survived. The cops and other authorities put him through a rather grueling interrogation. in which he allegedly confessed. He was eventually convicted of first-degree murder. He remains in prison, but he has appealed his conviction many times, and I’ve read a lot of stuff on it. I read the appellate briefings, and after reading those, I began to think, you know, maybe this Delisle guy wasn’t the only bad guy in the story. I changed the drowning to be pinned on the wife, Catriona Dulaney. The story is quite a bit different.
EC: Why did you put hockey in the story?
BG: I’d say I’m a rank amateur. I’ve been playing since I was a kid. Jimmy was a hockey player, and a pretty good one. I decided to make him a Zamboni driver for this team, the Ice Kings, the great team in Bitterfrost. Once hockey’s established, I can’t look away from it because it’s kind of like the rallying force of this little town up north.
EC: How would you describe the female lead, Devyn Payne?
BG: She is in her 30s, tough, smart and willing to break rules. Not moral rules necessarily, but little rules. She has a somewhat fraught relationship with her mother, Eleanor, and she’s good friends with Jimmy. She also plays hockey. I had written her in a previous book that was never published. She was a lawyer in that one, too, but a very different kind of lawyer.
EC: How would you describe Jimmy?
BG: In the first book, he’s kind of a lonely guy, and then he gets accused of murder, and he’s in a lot of trouble. And he doesn’t even know exactly what happened in that instance, but he knows he’s capable of extreme violence, because he did the same thing to a player. For him, every day is a penance. He’s trying to make up for what he did. After having one drink he went home but cannot understand why he has all this blood on his hands.
EC: What about the relationship between Devyn and Jimmy?
BG: Over the course of the book, he gets closer to his defense attorney, Devyn. And in River Deep, they’re kind of touch and go, partners, lovers, romantic partners, and I think he’s more at peace. He’s trying to decide what he’s going do with his life, and part of it is, depends, to some degree, on Devyn.
EC: What about the setting?
BG: Northern Michigan in the winter, makes for a, cold, chilly place. It’s somewhat harsh and unlivable. The setting also revolves to some degree around that hockey team. It’s also in a small town. Everybody knows each other. There aren’t a lot of open secrets.
EC: There is a feud between the Dulaneys and the Paynes?
BG: In River Deep, the town divides, because you have these two families, the Paynes and the Dulaneys, who are the most prominent families. The tension between the Payne family, represented by the defense attorney, Devyn Payne, and the Dulaney family, represented by Catriona, has been well established in the first book, and it continues, to some extent, in River Deep. Half the town thinks Catriona should be convicted and put away forever, as a murderer, and the other half of the town thinks this is just the elite family in town, and the Paynes taking out their vengeance on the Dulaneys.
EC: In River Deep why did you have her change from a defense attorney to a prosecutor?
BG: Yes, when she comes back to Bitterfrost because her mother’s not doing well. She feels guilty about not helping her brother or her mother. And it’s just easier for her to take a job that has a salary, and she gets an office. She doesn’t have to pay for any of the overhead. A lot of lawyers in their careers are on both sides of the courtroom. But then, she sees things, she doesn’t like, and she changes her mind and decides to defend Catriona.
EC: How would you describe Catriona?
BG: She is similar in age, a little younger than Devyn. I described her as very good looking, with really flowing red hair. She has had a rough past, but tough in her own way. She doesn’t mind having some drinks, or edibles, or whatever. to have fun. After she gets involved with some guy, she gets pregnant. There is this terrible incident, she must come to terms with her potential guilt, which I think she does by the end.
EC: What about Detective Garth Klimmek?
BG: I kind of invented him on a whim, and thought, ‘Okay, let’s make it an older guy who’s kind.’ And I named him after a woman who ended up testifying against those brothers in Mio because I just thought it was a cool name. He makes important decisions in the books. Readers get to know him through scenes with his wife, Kris, who loves him, and he loves her. She holds him to account and makes him think about his choices without telling him what to do. In River Deep, he’s in a difficult position, and it’s made more difficult by the fact that he’s planning on retiring quite soon.
EC: Next book?
BG: Tentatively, it’ll be titled Savage Falls. It’s about a guy who ends up at the bottom of the falls, at the beginning of the book, after an encounter with his girlfriend, even though he’s married. For now, his name will be Garrett Gander. I don’t think we’ll change it. He is a very wealthy young entrepreneur who builds data centers. His girlfriend is a character who appeared in both the first two books, and is a dear friend of Devyn’s. It will probably come out fall of 2027. Devyn will be a major character. Klimmek now is retired, but he’s working for Devyn as sort of a consulting investigator. There’s a new detective, whose name is Levi Fraught who is investigating the murder of Gander. There will also be a point of view from Sherry Ann Gander, the wife, who was divorcing him when he died and will inherit a lot of money.
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