Termination Dust

Termination Dust is the second book in Sue Henry's series on Jessie Arnold, set in Alaska. This book is set in the Yukon. Ok, so this isn't Alaska. When the book opens, Jim Hampton is kayaking in the Yukon River. En route, he discovers a body and a few artifacts dating back to the 1890s. Among these items is the diary of a gold miner heading for the Klondike gold rush and a few nuggets of gold. Part of this book is uncovering the events of the miner and what became of his gold.

Next, Jim is attacked by two men in a zodiac, an inflatable motorized boat, who destroy his kayak and steal his gear. Jim makes camp, but when he wakes, there are two policemen, a dead body, and most of his gear is back. All the evidence points to Jim as the show more murderer, but he has no motive.

Termination dust is an Alaskan term for the first light dusting of snow on the mountains. This is taken as a sign of the big snows to come. Both stories see this moment come and pass.

I enjoyed the story a lot, but felt it could have been more. I kept expecting more from the historical story. It was pretty obvious who dunnit, especially that Jim hadn't. And the evidence seemed to hinge a lot on a simple error by the guilty. But it is still a very enjoyable read.

As a bonus, the last chapter of the book is the full diary of the gold miner, Addison Harley Riser. It is an enjoyable tale in its own right. show less

Although Termination Dust is in the Jessie Arnold series, she's a relatively minor character in this installment until the end. Her boyfriend Alex Jensen is assisting Inspector Charles Delafosse of the Royal Mounted Canadian Police in the Yukon Territory with a crime that is crossing the international border. When a body is found at a camp site along the Yukon River, the chief suspect is American so Delafosse invites Alex to remain to assist in the investigation. It's approved by Alex's superiors. Something doesn't quite ring true about the whole investigation. The evidence seems to point to Jim Hampton, the suspect found at the camp site, but there are enough inconsistencies that they keep investigating. Hampton had found a diary from show more the 1897 Gold Rush, and Hampton and Jensen are both intrigued by it. While the installment got off to a slow start, it picked up pace and kept me wanting to find "whodunit." There were several red herrings to keep the reader second guessing themselves. The diary is printed at the end of the book. show less

Story:
Jim Hampton is enjoying his vacation in the Yukon wilderness when he comes across a eerie relic from the past. He finds what appears to be the remains of human being buried in the bank of the river he is canoeing down. Upon further examination Jim discovers the journal of the dead man in a boot he finds. It turns out that the man was a gold seeker named Addison Rider during the 1897 gold rush. Having no idea why the man was out in the middle of what was definitely rugged and inhospitable wilderness back in 1897, Jim takes the journal and a more surprising find of several gold nuggets intending to investigate further when he gets back to town. Before he can do so he is ambushed by two men who attack him and take most of his show more belongings, leaving him only with a damaged canoe and his emergency supplies. Jim is shaken but decides to make a emergency camp and hike back to town in the morning. Unfortunately when Jim wakes up in the morning he has more to worry about than a splitting headache. He has two very curious policeman wanting to know why he was camped next to a corpse that was shot with the shotgun lying next to him…
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This is definitely not a light mystery where the whodunit can be guessed halfway through the book. The list of suspects is long and gets longer as the book goes on and it does seem that just about every body had something to with the killings except the poor guy that got stuck with the smoking gun. I will say that the ending was a bit typical but the lead up was great. The author does a good job of weaving two stories together at the same time and it kept me turning the pages. Interestingly (and unusual) the author puts the whole second story together in a kind of appendix at the end of the book which I thought was neat. Also this is apparently a series and I haven’t read the rest of them so I can’t say how this one fits in as far as a overall story. On it’s own though this book definitely kept me turning the pages. If you like your mysteries to take awhile get around to the who in the whodunit and like some history thrown in for good measure I would definitely recommend this book. M.a.c show less

In the second entry in the series, Alex Jensen is on loan in Yukon Territory, assisting his friend and colleague on the RCMP in a series of escalating car thefts on both sides of the border.

Jim Hampton, alone on a canoe trip down the Yukon below Dawson, stumbles on the skeleton of a prospector from the gold rush era. Among the remains he finds a journal describing his trip to Alaska and on to Dawson in the fall of 1897. Back on the river Jim is robbed at gun point and jumps into the river to save himself. He barely makes it to shore with his minimal survival gear and is awakened the next morning by the police as they find a dead body nearby and all clues point to him. Further events occur that further confuse the case and all seems to show more tie to the stampeder's diary.

This was a enjoyable read, taking me back to last year's vacation place. The old diary nicely introduces the gold rush era and gives some insight into the difficulties these men faced. show less

I liked the Yukon setting and the story. I thought the main characters were kind of bland. I always like a mystery-in-a- mystery. This one has a gold rush era story going on as well.