In “The New King,” disbarred Michigan attorney Ben Hirsch returns as a reluctant private investigator operating out of his decaying childhood home in Manistique, Mich. The Upper Peninsula’s wealthiest family turns to Hirsch when their nineteen-year-old daughter vanishes.

What begins as a straightforward missing person case on an idyllic Lake Michigan island pulls Hirsch into a dangerous cult led by eccentric mathematics professor Jonathan Teller. Following in the footsteps of the martyred nineteenth-century Mormon prophet James Strang, Teller crowns himself king of Beaver Island.

When another young woman connected to the cult turns up dead, desperation and a sense of duty thrust Hirsch deeper into an underworld of drug runners and sex traffickers determined to exploit the cult’s most vulnerable followers.

As Hirsch uncovers the dark secret haunting Beaver Island’s newest king, powerful forces conspire to stop him at any cost. Hirsch finds himself in the crosshairs of his sinister adversaries as he races against the clock to bring the cult to justice and save Beaver Island — and himself — from ruination.

Nathan Shore has written two novels in in his series of Ben Hirsch Mysteries set in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, with the most recent being "The New King." Shore lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota, with his wife and cat. (Photo courtesy of Nathan Shore)

“The New King” is the sequel to Shore’s 2022 debut novel, “The Blue Flame.” Victor Volkman of the Marquette Monthly called the debut novel “a tour de force in a new genre I’m going to call ‘Northern Noir'” and “a gripping legal thriller in the best tradition of John Grisham or Scott Turow.” Tom Powers of Michigan in Books described “The Blue Flame” as “a tightly written thriller that builds to a riveting climax” and “a very good book by a first-time author who lives in southern Arizona and writes of the Upper Peninsula like he has lived there all his life.”

Shore is an attorney and labor relations professional, and he is a member of the Upper Peninsula Publishers & Authors Association. His ancestors hail from the U.P. and homesteaded in Delta and Schoolcraft Counties beginning in the 1850s.

“My experience with the law and my family legacy in the Upper Peninsula inspired my series of novels,” the author says. “The novel explores the criminal underworld of rural America amidst the beauty and majesty of the U.P. and the robust character of its inhabitants.”

“The New King” is available from Amazon and other retailers in hardcover, paperback or e-book formats, and readers can ask for it at their local library. To learn more about Shore, visit his website, https://barquepointpress.com/.