Combine the skills and knowledge of James Band with the neuroses of George Costanza and you'll get a good picture of Irving Goldstein, the protagonist in Philip Louis Gissen's new thriller Solitary Citadel.
When Dennis Buffalo is found murdered on a reservation on the south shore of Lake Superior, Goldstein - an international operative who now works as a smalltown officer of the law - is brought in to investigate. Prior to the murder, the author gives the reader a glimpse of Goldstein's previous occupation. It is only after messing up on a mission overseas that he is exiled to rural Wisconsin.
For Gissen, choosing to set the story in a small, cold town comes from a personal experience when he accepted a teaching job in northern Wisconsin. "It was so interesting in winter, because when the wind howled and snow fell and the temperatures became below zero, it really changed people. They became more fascinating. Some of their darkness came out," says Gissen. "That's where I decided to base the novel."
Although the book leans into graphic images, Gissen doesn't include violence and sex gratuitously. "For me, violence and sex have to reveal character," says Gissen. "It has to expose something about the morality, the ethics of the people involved. And, of course, it has consequences for different people in different ways."
Solitary Citadel can be found online through amazon and through the author's website as well as and at various booksellers including Barnes and Noble.
Minnesota Reads is produced at The North 103.3 with funding provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.
