North of Boston — Elisabeth Elo

Like Smilla's "Sense of Snow" combined with the best of Dennis Lehane, "North of Boston" is a dark and deeply atmospheric thriller with a sharp-witted, tough-talking heroine readers will be clamoring to meet again.

Boston-bred Pirio Kasparov is out on her friend Ned's fishing boat when a freighter rams into them, dumping them both into the icy waters of the North Atlantic. Somehow, she survives nearly four hours before being rescued. Ned is not so lucky. Pirio can't shake the feeling that what happened was no accident, a suspicion seconded by her cynical Russian-immigrant father. And when Pirio teams up with the unlikeliest of partners, she begins unraveling a terrifying plot that leads to the frozen reaches of the Canadian arctic, where she confronts her ultimate challenge: to trust herself.