A Cold Day for Murder

Alaskan mystery!

I tell you, I literally breathed the cold of the mountain air, I heard the grand silence, and I felt Aleut woman Kate Shugak’s dismay, her hurt, and importantly her love for Alaska and it’s wilderness.
The National Park she lives in covers twenty million acres. A ranger has been missing for six weeks, and an FBI agent who was strangely investigating the disappearance, for two.
Kate, a former District Attorney Investigator, now doing private consulting, has been called to follow up on these disappearances. She’s from the area, she’s whip smart, and has a way of cutting through to the truth.
Only Kate doesn’t want to do it. She lives out in the wilderness with her wolf dog Mutt, her top of the line Arctic Cat show more machine, and her injuries from a previous case. We’re not sure what it was but her throat was cut. She has an unsightly scar and a hoarse voice.
What she does know is that the two missing are two men she’d worked with before. Where are they? And are her family involved?
A great start to a new adventure series set in the wilds of Alaska where the only way in is plane or up a disused railway track.
A Park full of interesting characters, from her astute grandmother, various cousins, old time miners, to a couple of drunken dimwits.
I was living the thrill, and the despair of it all!

An Aria & Aries ARC via NetGalley.
Many thanks to the author and publisher. show less

The setting was certainly a welcome respite from a harsh Australian summer and its depiction is one of the standout features of the book. Stabenow lets us know immediately where we are with her introductory passages

The rending, tearing noise of the snow machine’s engine echoed across the landscape and affronted the arctic peace of that December day. It startled a moose stripping the bark from a stand of spindly birches. It sent a beaver back into her den in a swift-running stream. it woke a bald eagle roosting in the top of a spruce, causing him to glare down on the two men with malevolent eyes. The sky was of that crystal clarity that comes only to lands of the far north in winter, light translucent, wanting cloud and color.

Such show more vivid descriptions are supplemented by several maps (which I always appreciate) so that readers are easily able to imagine the protagonist’s isolated and practical home base and both the town and national park in which the book’s action is centered.

The other element of the novel I found captivating was Kate Shugak. For even though strong female characters are easier to locate in my reading now than they might have been when she first came into being two decades ago there is still something very appealing about the character of Kate. She’s an Aleut Indian who grew up in a small community, moved to Anchorage for study and work then returned to her roots to live on her own after a traumatic event. Most of the time keeps her emotions deeply buried and gets on with being a competent, self-sufficient woman. But occasionally she can’t prevent them bubbling to the surface; as if they are being physically wrenched from inside her. It is these moments that lets readers build a picture of what life is like living in Kate’s skin. With Kate’s memories. And Kate’s anger.

A COLD DAY FOR MURDER is the first of what is now 20 novels in which Kate appears and it’s not difficult to see why it attracted attention, including winning an Edgar Award for best paperback original. Its plot is simple enough – Kate is an ex DA’s investigator but is asked here by her old boss Jack to help investigate two disappearances. A park ranger, who just happens to be the son of a prominent politician, went missing 6 weeks previously and the investigator Jack sent looking for him 4 weeks later also seems to have vanished without a trace. Both men were known to have been in Niniltna, a town Kate knows intimately as many members of her family still live there. Kate is reluctant to become involved but does so, rationalising it with this way when waking from a 3am nightmare

The hauntings would continue no matter what she did, she knew that already. But for a time, perhaps, the ghosts would take on a different shape, mouth different words, stare accusingly for different reasons. It was enough.

Although there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with it, the plot is the weakest element of this very good book. It is at times a bit repetitive and there is a layer of complexity missing but this is largely irrelevant because this is a book about character and place. Both leap off the page. Kate is not the only one with a long memory and demons to wrestle and the different ways this notion plays out make for gripping reading. As does the book’s exploration of Native American politics as they apply to Alaska in general and Kate’s extended family in particular. Her battle with her grandmother over this issue is fascinating.

It is always daunting to realise you’ve really enjoyed a book which now has many, many series companions and I don’t know that I’ll read every one of Kate Shugak’s adventures subsequent to this one but I am sure I will visit with her again. I found the central character and her world intriguing and can’t imagine too many readers wouldn’t be equally engaged. show less

Former District Attorney Investigator, Kate Shugak, retired after having her throat cut while capturing a serial killer. Both physically and emotionally scarred she now lives alone on her 160 acre homestead in Alaska. When a rookie park ranger and son of a congressmen goes missing in a huge wilderness area known as the “Park” an investigator and friend of Kate's is sent to find him and now he's missing too. Former lover and boss, Jack Morgan, convinces her to go looking for the missing men because Kate's Aleut family lives in the “Park” and she might be able to use that to her advantage in hunting for the missing men. Before long she discovers some of her extended family members may be involved in the disappearance.

Kate is a show more well done character battling the memories and nightmares of the tragedy of her last investigation for the DA's office. The author does a really great job of character development and how Kate balances between the two worlds of her former Anchorage life and her Native Alaskan heritage. Every dog lover will fall for Mutt, Kate's half husky, half wolf dog. Alaska is the show here much the way Minnesota is in the Cork O'Connor series. The sparse frozen land and native culture is a character in itself.

This was a well written story set in a fascinating setting. Kate is a strong character and a no-nonsense problem solver. It's an intriguing and enjoyable introduction to series and I plan to read more. show less

Having read an advance readers copy of Though Not Dead and loving it, I decided to go back to the beginning and allow myself to be introduced to Kate Shugak good and proper. What can I say? I am in love with Dana Stabenow and her creation, Kate Shugak.

Kate is an Alaskan native in every sense of the word. She can trace her Aleutian roots deep into the Alaskan soil and ice. She is living in a homestead cabin in the Park, away from civilization, with only her half-wolf/half-husky companion Mutt as company. She does not want to be bothered by anyone or anything, so she is not terribly pleased to hear the roar of the snow machine heading for her homestead. She is even less pleased to see who climbs off. After she is told that her help is show more needed to find not one but two missing people, a Park ranger and the man sent to find him, she is definitely unhappy. But she agrees to help because she knows that she is the only one who can find them.

One of the things that I love about Dana Stabenow's writing is this: she alludes to things past without feeling the need to explain anything. She gives small glimpses, little teases, tiny but sometimes horrific snapshots. The reader is then allowed and encouraged to put these bits together and figure out what happened. No lengthy backstory is required. The snippets provided are plenty enough to understand.

Another thing I love about Stabenow is the way she paints a portrait of the glorious Alaskan wilderness. She writes in such a way that I feel the deadly coldness through the pages. I can smell the crispness of the winter air. Stabenow opens little windows everywhere so you can peek into the souls of the characters, their lives, their cultures. And it's not always pretty. Or happy. Or fair. But it is what it is.

And that's why I will continue reading this series. Besides, Kate and Mutt are the greatest kick-ass team around. On to book two. show less

For a quick trip to Alaska, you can either spend $1300 on airplane tickets, or read Dana Stabenow's A COLD DAY FOR MURDER. I knew right away I would like this book when Stabenow alluded on the first page to both The Cremation of Sam Magee and North to Alaska (the song).

A COLD DAY FOR MURDER is the first of Stabenow's Kate Shugak series. Kate is an Alaska Native, an Aleut (with some Russian ancestry as well), who formerly worked in Anchorage as a police officer specializing in sexual abuse cases. After a particularly horrific experience which left her scarred in mind and body, she quit, and lives alone in the bush with her dog Mutt. When her former boss, who has also been her lover, shows up, FBI agent in tow, to ask her to track two show more missing men, she at first refuses. But when she learns that one of the men is also her current, from time to time lover, she agrees.

The search takes her where she least wants to go -- back to her grandmother, a fearsome and manipulative matriarch, and to the troubles of her various cousins. She renews acquaintance with a variety of characters worthy of Northern Exposure -- Bernie the bar owner and kids' basketball coach, and Bobby, the wheelchair-bound ham radio operator, are two of the most memorable. She learns the truth, but would rather not have.

The book is set in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, created in 1980 in southeastern Alaska. As it's referred to only as The Park throughout, I had a little trouble locating it on the Rand McNally one-page Alaska map in my road atlas. Looking at the National Park website was much more helpful in giving me an idea of where I was as I traveled with Kate by snowmobile and small plane through the winter landscape.

I will definitely be reading more of this series. Stabenow combines a rich sense of place, an ability to describe engaging, three-dimensional characters, and sure-handed plotting with plenty of red herrings to produce an excellent mystery. show less

Easy reading airplane thriller set in Inuit Alaska. After suffering emotional and physical scarring during a child abuse investigation, hard-nosed Kate Shugak has separated herself from her abandoned career, former lover, and well-meaning but overbearing family. When a park ranger and a recent lover disappear on her doorstep, her old boss (and lover) persuade her to look into it. Soon she finds herself investigating her own sprawling family. Lightweight fluff - adequately written and the vision of Alaska feels authentic, but light on tension or surprises (or perhaps it just failed to make me care enough) - still enjoyable enough that I'd consider reading another on another flight.

A fast-paced and atmospheric introduction to an unusual Alaskan detective series, but very, very short! I thought 200 pages was skimpy, but the novel actually ends 20 pages earlier, with a brief preview of the next instalment tacked onto the end. Dana Stabenow's distinctive covers have been passing back and forth under my nose at the library for ages now, so I thought I would give the books a try, even though I don't really read detective novels. From the clipped but concise opening murder investigation, I would say that I enjoyed the quirky humour, loved adding to my limited knowledge of Alaska (and by that, I mean limited to episodes of Northern Exposure), but didn't really warm to Kate (pardon the pun). If book two drifts into the show more library, I might read on, but I'm not in any great hurry to plough through the next twenty or so books in the series. (Pardon all the puns!) show less