Northern Lights by Nora Roberts ISBN 0-399-15205-9 Copyright 2004

Nora Roberts flies us into Lunacy, Alaska, population 506, and into a colorful, compelling new novel about two lonely souls who find love – and redemption.

Lunacy is Nate Burke’s last chance. As a Baltimore cop, he watched his partner die – and the guilt stills haunts him. Maybe servings as chief of police in this tiny, remote town, where darkness fall by mid-afternoon and temperatures plunge to zero and below, will bring some kind of solace. It isn’t as if he had anywhere to go.

Aside from sorting out a run-in between a couple of motor  vehicles and a moose – and pulling apart two brothers who are beating each other silly over a disagreement about John Wayne – Nate’s first weeks on the job are relatively quiet. But as he wonders whether this was all a big mistake, an unexpected kiss on New Year’s Eve under the brilliant northern lights of the Alaska sky lifts his spirits – and convinces him to just a little while longer.

Meg Galloway, born and raised here, is used to being alone. She was still a young girl when her father disappeared, and she’s learned to be independent, flying her small plane, living on the outskirts with just her huskies for company. But after her New Year’s Eve kiss with the Chief of Police she allows herself to give in to passion. She doesn’t want commitment – yet there’s something about Nate’s sad eyes that gets under her skin, and warms her frozen heart.

And now things in Lunacy are heating up. Because years ago, on one of the majestic mountains that shadow the town, a crime occurred that is unsolved to this day – and Nate suspects that a killer still walks the snowy streets. His investigation will bring out the secrets and suspicions that lurk beneath the placid surface  as well as the big-city survival instincts that made him a cop in the first place. And it will threaten the new life, and the the new love, that has finally found for himself.