"In a clearing ringed with old growth trees, the leaves on the turn with fall and shiny from last night's rain so it appeared as if someone had strung the woods with Christmas lights a couple months early, Deputy Pete Thomas found Martha Johns." The Bay begins with a body of a young woman tucked beneath a patchwork quilt of brilliant autumn leaves not far from the shores of Little Bay de Noc in Gladstone, Michigan where Detroit homicide cop Matt Prescott has returned to his childhood home to heal from a near-fatal shooting. After a long winter convincing himself that his days as a cop are over he's asked to step in as Gladstone's acting chief of police. This is an easy favor in the quiet Upper Peninsula town where - unlike Detroit - there's never been much mystery in the deaths. Until an anonymous call leads Matt and his two deputies, Rea Hobbes and Pete Thomas, to the daughter of old friends before the sun is up on a chilled Sunday morning in mid September. As they search for the killer, Matt and his deputies follow a trail of evidence that leads them through strip clubs and shuttered bait shops, off-season beaches and silent forests as they wade into the deeply rooted pasts of both friends and enemies that run as dark and as cold as the depths beneath the usually calm surface of The Bay. The Bay is the first book in a new mystery series featuring Sheriff Matt Prescott - a character that fans of James Lee Burke's tortured hero Dave Robicheaux, Robert Parker's small town sheriff Jesse Stone and Loren Estleman's hard-boiled private investigator Amos Walker will instantly recognize.