FIRE IN THE STARS By Barbara Fradkin Dundurn, 325 pages, $19

Amanda Doucette gets around on a lime green Kawasaki motorcycle. Her loyal companion is a Nova Scotia Duck Trolling Retriever named Kaylee. Doucette has just finished a stint as an international aid worker dodging Boko Haram in Nigeria. Now, back home in Canada, she gets on the search for Phil Cousins, a fellow veteran of the Nigerian assignment who’s gone missing with his young son in the wilds of northern Newfoundland. With Fire in the Stars, Barbara Fradkin launches a new series featuring the super nervy Doucette. The book’s plot is relatively simple, a matter of finding Cousins and proving he isn’t a possible murderer on the run. It’s the geography that complicates Doucette’s mission. Fradkin is just about masterly at describing landscape and weather, both of which happen to be treacherous in a Newfoundland autumn. No matter how the novel ends — the conclusion comes with a nice twist — it’s the wilderness that provides the story’s passion.