Amazon.com (ISBN 0553580647, Mass Market Paperback)

If Cecil Younger, John Straley's Alaska P.I., plied his trade in the lower 48, he'd probably have to work another job to pay his rent. As it is, he barely ekes out a living chasing chickens as well as two-legged deadbeats in Sitka, where he lives with an autistic roommate and a part-time lover who's a lot more ambitious than he is. So when he's offered a job investigating why so many people are dying on the SS Westward, Straley takes readers along on a luxury cruise in the icy waters of the Inland Passage. L'Inconnue de la Seine is a very unusual travel club--while most of its members are in ill health to begin with, there's something besides coincidence that's killing them before their time. Is it the ship's doctor who's responsible, or are there more sinister forces at work? When Cecil stumbles onto the truth behind the escalating mortality rates, he's rudely put ashore on an island inhabited only by bears. Fortunately for him, his girlfriend is a marine biologist who not only knows how to make a gourmet dinner out of sea slugs but can also talk a hungry bear out of having her and Cecil for dessert. What makes Straley's series so interesting are his extraordinary descriptive talents--if this is as close to Alaska as the reader of these finely wrought novels ever gets, it's almost as good as being there. --Jane Adams