Nick Petrie
Mystery to Me 1863 Monroe St., Madison, Wisconsin 53711
press release: Discussing "The Wild One," new novel.
About the Book: THE WILD ONEis the fifth novel in the Edgar Award-nominated, bestselling Peter Ash series, but the first that takes Ash on a mission of mercy outside the U.S. Traveling to the unwelcoming backcountry of Iceland in the dead of winter to locate an eight-year-old boy, this “self-contained unstoppable force” (Library Journal) once again faces down the demons of his own past through an act of redemption. The challenges and violence he encounters in the barren Nordic landscape will test even this seasoned U.S. Marine vet—who does not know the full extent of power wielded by the faceless enemy he is going up against.
The PTSD that has afflicted Ash since his tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan is back in full-force, intensifying the chronic buzzing in his head and triggering a debilitating sense of claustrophobia. He feels caged-in and directionless, even at the usual refuge of his girlfriend June’s home in Washington State. When Ash gets a call from an old comrade-in-arms asking him to help a wealthy woman who is looking for her grandson, he is reluctant even to take the meeting. But Catherine Price’s grief-stricken story pushes all the right buttons: her daughter was killed and her grandson whisked off to Iceland by his father, Erik, who is the prime suspect in the murder. Not seeking retribution, Mrs. Price says she just wants her grandson back.
Things take a hostile turn from the start. When Ash arrives in Reykjavik after a grueling flight, he is detained at customs and immigration as a man from the U.S. Embassy tries to deny him entry into the country—despite his lack of jurisdiction to do so or his refusal to offer an explanation. The Icelandic authorities are slightly more accommodating, and Ash is given two days to remain in the country. But it gets no easier as his first inquiry into Erik’s whereabouts turns into a brutal fight in the frigid night outside a club. Undaunted, Ash perseveres, but when he fails to abide by the edict that he leave the country, the hunter becomes the hunted. Ash leaves the capital city and travels farther into the wild countryside in search of the man he believes is a killer and the child he has been asked to save. Even the authorities on his heels or the most powerful storm the country has withstood in a generation will not deter him.
About the Author: NICK PETRIE won a Hopwood Award for short fiction while an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, and his story “At the Laundromat” won the 2006 Short Story Contest in The Seattle Review, a national literary journal. He is the author of four previous novels in the Peter Ash series. His debut, The Drifter, won both the ITW Thriller Award and the Barry Award for Best First Novel, and was a finalist for the Edgar, Anthony, and Hammett awards. His third novel, Light It Up, was Apple iBooks’ Thriller of the Year and a finalist for the Barry award. A husband and father, he lives in Milwaukee.