WE CAN'T SAVE YOU

Thomas E. Ricks

Pegasus Crime

6/3/25

Mystery

Hardcover, 304 pages

"Ricks nimbly weaves together elements of political thriller, whodunit, and domestic drama."

–Publishers Weekly

When a group of young Native Americans launches a series of protests against climate change and its effects on the waters and woods of Maine, veteran FBI agent Ryan Tapia is assigned to monitor the movement. The protestors, who become determined to split away from American society, are led by “Peeled Paul” Soco, a Malpense hermit who played a key role in one of Tapia's previous investigations. When the marchers begin making camps on the lawns of luxurious summer mansions along the Maine coast, they win national media attention—and the wrath of a reactionary president.

Tapia soon finds himself torn. He wants to do right by Soco and the protestors, but his bosses at the Bureau are eager to please a president itching to crack down on them. Growing increasingly sympathetic to the protestors and their cause, he tells them about a possible refuge—a secret CIA base hidden away in the depths of the Maine woods on the Canadian border.

Building to a dizzying, wind-whipped climax, We Can't Save You establishes Ryan Tapia as one of the most compelling and nuanced investigators in crime fiction."

Dear Reader,

A Maine writer named Stephen King wrote a terrific book about writing, called, naturally enough, On Writing. In it, he mentions that the ideas for his books often began with “what if?” questions.

One day, I asked myself, “What if some of America’s Indians launched an intrusive public action akin to the Civil Rights Movement?” Then I asked myself what would make something like that happen. Immediately, global overheating occurred to me.

To begin my research, I read as much as I could about Maine’s Indians—their histories, their myths, their views. Their religion. I was especially taken with their proverbs. I think that good proverbs capture the essence of a culture. One Maine Indian proverb I read was, “Everyone has got to skin their own skunk.” That’s a pungent one. I am not sure what it means. I think you have to deal with what life hands you, good or bad.

Next, I read a lot about global warming, or more accurately, global overheating. I don’t have much new to say about that subject, except this: The more I read, the more I came to be persuaded that we are in real trouble. In other words, current solutions aren’t enough and “sustainability” is a false hope.

When I combined climate damage with the history of American Indians, something interesting happened: the history of those Indians, or Native Americans, is tied up with climate change, going back 10,000 years. They first came to North America because there was a land bridge between Asia and Alaska. They moved across the continent as the glaciers of the last major ice age retreated. In Maine, they moved northward as the ice left.

And thinking about that led me to another of Stephen King’s “what ifs.” That is, what if the shoe is now on the other foot? What if Indian culture is better suited to handling an era of global overheating, epidemics, storms, and supply chain disruptions?

That’s what some of the lead characters in this book begin to believe, as they decide to detach from what they see as a dying American culture. Which is why, at the end, one says, “We can’t save you.”



Thank you,

Tom Ricks

Book Club Recipe and Menu

Food shows up a lot in We Can't Save You. In one scene, Native Americans conducting a protest march down the coast of Maine stop to catch eels in a freshwater stream. That evening, they roast them over a campfire. “Indian bacon,” comments one appreciatively. (To be clear, in Maine, some tribes refer to themselves as Indians. Just look at the seal of the Penobscot Nation). I’ve eaten eel in Chinese restaurants, cooked Shanghai-style in a spicy black bean sauce, but I’ve never had them as the marchers do in the story, wrapped in onion grass and then roasted over an open fire.



In another scene, there is an aside about serving lobster tails in a creamy Pernod sauce with fiddleheads. I put that in the story for fun, because I was contemplating what would be the “Maine-est” possible dish to cook. In the book, I have it served over buttered couscous, but on reflection, it would be even “Maine-er” to serve it over mashed Maine potatoes.

I confess I have never cooked this dish. But I hope to do so this coming summer, when I return to the Maine coast. Penobscot Bay in August and early September may be the most beautiful place on the planet. This is my favorite way to cook lobster, especially for kids who have just witnessed the process of catching them.

I'll use this recipe—my version, adapted from several others—when I make this dish. I've adapted from several others.

—Thomas E. Ricks



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