Change never comes easy, but it comes just the same, and it's on its way to the Park, to Niniltna, in southeast Alaska. This time it concerns the possibility of drilling for oil in a wildlife preserve near there, near Aleutian P.I. Kate Shugak's home territory. Battle lines are drawn across their community, but at least it gives Kate something to do. Still just months after her lover's violent death, though she doesn't know quite how, she is trying to get back into her daily life.
First, tensions run high as their resident park ranger, Dan O'Brien, is deemed "too green for them" by management and asked to take early retirement. Kate rallies the troops inside the Park to fight for his job, but before she can really start throwing her weight around, a long-time Park resident is brutally murdered, another stabbed and left for dead as well.
Alaska State Trooper Jim Chopin enlists Kate to help investigate, and together they tackle the loose ends: motive, timing, opportunity, means. One thing is for certain-in Dana Stabenow's masterful crime novels about the beauty and the danger of living and dying in Alaska, nothing is as simple as it seems.
From Publishers Weekly
This is the 12th in a series (after 2001's The Singing of the Dead) that truly evolves rather than simply revisiting the same setting, although that setting is a doozy: an austere and beautiful Alaskan outback, populated with eccentrics and wild creatures. Kate Shugak could be considered a little of both, having grown up in this hinterland and being fond of her own ways. Kate discovers that park ranger Dan O'Brian is about to lose his job, probably because he is against drilling for oil in the local wildlife preserve. In an effort to garner support for Dan, Kate calls on her late grandmother's dear friends, Ruthe and Dina, who together taught Kate the name of every living thing in the park when she was a child. This longtime couple sits on a big chunk of pristine wilderness and works hard to protect other areas. Meanwhile, Dan has fallen for Christie Turner, the new waitress at the Roadhouse, and state trooper Jim Chopin, a notorious womanizer, is focused on the one woman who won't give him the time of day Kate. She isn't ready for a new relationship, as she is still mourning her dead lover, Jack Morgan, and trying to provide a stable environment for his teenage son, Johnny. When Dina is killed and Ruthe is put on the critical list at the hospital, Kate scrambles to solve the crime while keeping a balance in the rest of her life. Along the way, she finds herself in a brief but torrid encounter with Jim. Rich with details about life in this snowbound culture, the story moves at a steady pace to a classic ending. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
The well-known Alaskan P.I. finds herself in the middle of a volatile situation involving proposed drilling for oil in a wildlife preserve. A ranger there is fired for political reasons, and then an important conservationist is poisoned. Be sure to have this on hand. Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Description:
Change never comes easy, but it comes just the same, and it's on its way to the Park, to Niniltna, in southeast Alaska. This time it concerns the possibility of drilling for oil in a wildlife preserve near there, near Aleutian P.I. Kate Shugak's home territory. Battle lines are drawn across their community, but at least it gives Kate something to do. Still just months after her lover's violent death, though she doesn't know quite how, she is trying to get back into her daily life.
First, tensions run high as their resident park ranger, Dan O'Brien, is deemed "too green for them" by management and asked to take early retirement. Kate rallies the troops inside the Park to fight for his job, but before she can really start throwing her weight around, a long-time Park resident is brutally murdered, another stabbed and left for dead as well.
Alaska State Trooper Jim Chopin enlists Kate to help investigate, and together they tackle the loose ends: motive, timing, opportunity, means. One thing is for certain-in Dana Stabenow's masterful crime novels about the beauty and the danger of living and dying in Alaska, nothing is as simple as it seems.
From Publishers Weekly
This is the 12th in a series (after 2001's The Singing of the Dead) that truly evolves rather than simply revisiting the same setting, although that setting is a doozy: an austere and beautiful Alaskan outback, populated with eccentrics and wild creatures. Kate Shugak could be considered a little of both, having grown up in this hinterland and being fond of her own ways. Kate discovers that park ranger Dan O'Brian is about to lose his job, probably because he is against drilling for oil in the local wildlife preserve. In an effort to garner support for Dan, Kate calls on her late grandmother's dear friends, Ruthe and Dina, who together taught Kate the name of every living thing in the park when she was a child. This longtime couple sits on a big chunk of pristine wilderness and works hard to protect other areas. Meanwhile, Dan has fallen for Christie Turner, the new waitress at the Roadhouse, and state trooper Jim Chopin, a notorious womanizer, is focused on the one woman who won't give him the time of day Kate. She isn't ready for a new relationship, as she is still mourning her dead lover, Jack Morgan, and trying to provide a stable environment for his teenage son, Johnny. When Dina is killed and Ruthe is put on the critical list at the hospital, Kate scrambles to solve the crime while keeping a balance in the rest of her life. Along the way, she finds herself in a brief but torrid encounter with Jim. Rich with details about life in this snowbound culture, the story moves at a steady pace to a classic ending.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
The well-known Alaskan P.I. finds herself in the middle of a volatile situation involving proposed drilling for oil in a wildlife preserve. A ranger there is fired for political reasons, and then an important conservationist is poisoned. Be sure to have this on hand.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.