We Can't Save You

A Tale of Politics, Murder, and Maine

Thomas E. Ricks

Thomas E. Ricks, author of five New York Times bestsellers, combines his deep knowledge of Maine with his years of experience covering U.S. military operations to craft a powerful tale of politics and mayhem in this riveting crime novel.

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.

Enraged by the protestors' actions, the White House sends a U.S. Army unit to track down the protestors on their stealth march through the evergreen forests. Meanwhile, Tapia’s bosses, vexed and embarrassed, fire him and threaten arrest. Undaunted, Tapia snowmobiles through the wilderness on a wintry night to warn the Indian protestors of the impending attack.

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.

Thomas E. Ricks is the author of five New York Times bestsellers, including the # 1bestseller Fiasco, a history of the beginning of the Iraq War. As a reporter at the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, he was a member of two teams that won the Pulitzer Prize.  He worked in the Maine woods in his youth and trapped lobsters when living on an island in Penobscot Bay. He now divides his time between Texas and Maine.

Buy it now in print:

Buy it now in ebook:

Endorsements & Reviews

“Celebrated journalist and military historian Ricks tries his hand at a new genre in this crime novel. It’s set in Maine, where a grieving FBI agent named Ryan Tapia is restarting his life. When a fisherman’s corpse shows up on federal land, Tepia is pulled into a case involving drugs, rare fish and the tensions between Maine’s White and Native American communities.” The Washington Post

"A Maine lobsterman’s murder launches this wily, unexpectedly affecting thriller. Ricks, who possesses a matching set of Pulitzer Prizes for reporting he did on two separate teams, for the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, has come through with a thriller that’s beautifully observed throughout, with a morally nuanced denouement." The Portland Press-Herald

“I’ve enjoyed many of Thomas Rick’s’ bestselling histories, and so I was not surprised but very glad to find his first mystery, set on the coast of Maine, just as riveting and beautifully written. FBI agent Ryan Tapia, alone in the Bangor office—grief struck, watchful and meticulous—heads up a marvelous cast." Anne Lamott, author of Dusk Night Dawn and Bird by Bird

"I really enjoyed Tom Ricks's Maine-set mystery Everyone Knows But You about Ryan Tapia, a solitude-seeking FBI man on an isolated part of the Maine coast. After the death of an ornery lobsterman, Agent Tapia uncovers enough secrets, lies and shenanigans to give Jessica Fletcher a run for her money. A sophisticated thriller debut from one of America's finest writers." Adrian McKinty,