This is the 11th outing for Kate Shugak, former Anchorage police officer and now private investigator in the Park in the Alaskan bush. The series took an unexpected turn in book 9, and with the last two entries, author Dana Stabenow has kept us on edge wondering if Shugak would survive.

In this book, Shugak returns to her homestead in the Park for the first time in months. She is promptly offered a job as a political candidate's protection after the candidate, a Native Alaskan, begins receiving threatening letters. Shugak, like most police officers, believes that the writer of the letters will go no further than the written word. But when one of the candidate's staff turns up dead, Shugak is forced to reevaluate her position. From that point, the book goes into high gear!

The characters, especially the ones we've grown to know over the years, are well-drawn and continue to grow and change. Stabenow gives us some history of Alaska, this time involving a prostitute of the Klondike era. She keeps you guessing about who did the foul deed although she is such a skillful writer that you find yourself hoping it's one of the campaign staff whom you come to love to hate. Stabenow's writing remains outstanding so much so that you can feel autumn slipping away with each turn of the page - in the back of your head you'll begin to wonder where you can lay your hands on a sweater - even if you're in 90 degree weather.

This is the 11th in the Kate Shugak Series, and the second one since Kate's sole mate was brutally killed while helping guide on a hunting trip.

In this story Kate is "talked into" acting as a bodyguard for a Native Woman who is running for s state senate seat. The biggest drawback is that it involves dealing with a woman she knows from college. Let's just say there is no apparent love loss here. At the same time Johnny is now living with Kate, or at least Kate's friends.

Stabenow has also given us a look into the past with this book. This is really 2 stories in one. Yes they are tied together. But, you learn a bit about the beginning of the state's history (Alaska) and the type of people that brought her into statehood. You also learn a lot about the difference in politics in a land that is vast and wide.

I loved the way the Dawson Darling was brought to life. Though I did find the switching back and forth a bit annoying. (Which is the 4 star rating) I would have liked to see this one as a separate story.

I also love how you see the pleasure that books bring people and the joy of reading (as many of us do) thought the eyes of Kate and Paula.

If you like a good murder mystery you will like this one! But, if you are new to the series I suggest you start with an earlier book first.

In the 11th. book of the Kate Shugak series, Dana Stabenow weaves 2 parallel stories into an interesting whole. The story with the current setting tells of Kate's new job as a security guard for Anne Gordaoff, a candidate for state senator from Kate's district. During the course of the campaign, the candidate's future son-in-law is murdered. This brings a new urgency to Kate's job and causes her to align with sometime friend and lover Jim Chopin to solve the case. When another body appears, the campaign workers' concerns deepen. The parallel story is told at the turn of the 20th. century with its central character being a "good time girl" during the Gold Rush days. She earns her living in the only way she knows how and supports her son through hardships and associations with abusive men. Her death has never been solved, but Kate connects it to her current case and discovers both killers at once. This is a good read and gives Stabenow's usual insider's view on Alaska.

I read this on a trip to Alaska, so I got into it's "spirit" on location. The stories are quite entertaining, but when writers make junior-varsity comments and mistakes, it makes me wonder about the veracity of the actual stories:
1) Does everyone see their entire lives flash before their eyes when they are near death?
2) Some guy's one-year old child asks him if he is Santa Claus upon his return from an ordeal at sea. Clearly Spike has never spent time with a one-year old; not only can very few of them speak more than a word or two, but this one is so eloquent and knowledgeable that he thinks the old man is Kris himself!
3) The helicopter pilot makes it to a "small village airport" just before running out of fuel (which means it must have been between 5-10 minutes from the rescue locale since they only had 30 minutes of fuel left before the rescue attempt(hmmmm), but somehow a C-130 can get in and out of there to send them home while the chopper gets an inspection (hmmm hmmmm).
I'll leave it at that...

Having lived my entire life in and around Seattle, In March 2001, I ventured North to Alaska to visit my daughter and her family. While there I picked up "Nights of Ice".

Spike Walker's subject matter is, first of all, relevant to anyone who has lived near the sea. The Pacific Ocean, the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska, as one non-fisherman said, "I can't drink it all and I'm damned sure I can't swim that far."

Life at sea in a boat, rolling and plowing through the next wave, gets into some folks blood. I'm sure it's that way with fishermen and women but the money don't hurt either. In any case its a perilous life.

Nights of Ice takes us along for a ride with people, real people, who have experienced the worst the sea has to offer. Walker's intimate knowledge of workin' the boats has us searching for lights in a "can't see your hand in front of your face" stateroom, attempting, frantically, to pull on the survival suit. We are terrified of the boat goin' down with us still on board. We gasp for air and our heart seems to stop when we hit the 37 degree water. We, along with actual survivors, use every ounce of strength and resource our bodies are able to muster in order to survive.

Nights of Ice and its individual, sometimes heroic, stories are an adventure in itself.

I enjoyed this book alot. All the stories deal with survival at sea in the waters off Alaska. The stories are kind of repetitive but if you like the first one you'll like the rest. The thought of finding one's self in the frigid Alaskan waters will make you pull an extra blanket on while you read. My only real complaint is that I would have liked more details on the fishermen involved (background, etc) so it wouldn't just have been names floating out there in the ocean. Overall, highly recommended adventure reading.

... I must confess that I couldn't finish this book, but I did make a valiant effort and got to page 255 before I quit, and I only quit because it was so supremely contrived and pretty darn annoying. Grace Hawkins is a Chicago socialite and after finding out that she has to marry an extremely "evil" (only in books!!) man, she escapes to Alaska where her governess's father is a missionary (wow, what a unique plot-that was sarcasm). They arrange passage on a ship manned by Peter Colton, of course a handsome young man that Grace begins to fall in love with (how did we guess???)and meet up with the Barringers (a man and his two children who recently lost their wife/mother). "Treasures of the North" failed to grab my attention. The plot was "nothing new" at best, and Martin Paxton was ridiculously evil, and... didn't "fit." Character development seemed "sketchy" and illogical-Karen had a few periods of introspection, but Grace (supposedly the main character) we heard nothing from at all. The same goes for Doris, Karen's spinster aunt who joined them on thier journey. But Bill Barringer has numerous periods of introspection about leaving his children in Karen's care while he goes to look for gold...and he says the same things EVERY time! Peter Colton is about as pleasing as fingers scratching a chalk board-his ridiculous ideas about the "supremity" of men and the "weakness" of women makes him a character that the reader despises, and I wondered how Grace could like him (let alone LOVE him!) at all. Poorly done book...I expected more from Tracie. The only reason I gave this book 2 stars instead of one was because the Alaskan setting had potential, and Karen and the trio COULD have been a dynamic, inspiring trio...but skip this anemic story, it's not worth your time.

Grace Hawkins was born of high social standing. Her mother wants the highest social standing possible so when Grace is really young she gets a governess for her. Her governess, Karen Pierce, becomes her best friend without her mother around. Franklin, Gracie's father, is a strict businessman but he makes a huge mistake. Grace is part of the deal. Her father lost a lot of money and as part of the deal Martin Paxton wants her as his bride. She's furious about the arranged marriage but it gets worse things get worse and he threatens her family. So they form a plan for her to get out of the marriage even though he threatens to hurt her family if she doesn't marry him.

Peter Colton's family's shipping business is going down the drain. The Yukon gold rush is a way for his family to get back on their feet. On his many trips north he meets some very interesting people.

Tracie Peterson does a wonderful job of intertwining all of her characters. I would have never thought this book would end the way it did.

I remember heading to the Christian Fiction Section to see if I could find some books I havent read by Lori Wick, unfortunatly I could not find any new books by her but did find this series, or rather the second and third of the series. So I went searching for the first book at other various bookstores, finally I found it. It was absolutly great, I would have read it all in one sitting except by the time I came home with the book it was 11:00. I would Highly Recommend this book to anyone!

In the best Shugak tradition this one goes straight for the gut and then kicks you in the crotch. Unlike other Shugak books this one spends more time from Jim Chopin's point of view than Kate's, but it gives a better feel for the action that way. Like all mysteries there has to be some difficulty in solving the crime and this time it's Kate and her grief. That is when it's not Chopin's emotional issues getting in the way.

I knew after "Hunters Moon" that the next book would be a real emotional wringer and this book did not let me down in the least. While the mystery here is easy to solve the reason I couldn't put down the book until I finished it is that Kate is so real and so spell binding.

I can't wait for the next one. I rate Dana Stabenow up there with Dick Francis and Kate Shugak with Travis McGee.

This was the first book I've read by Dana Stabenow but it won't be the last! I was captivated from beginning to end. I will definetly be reading the rest of the Kate Shugak series and anything else by Dana Stabenow I can get my hands on.

I didn't think I would be very interested in a story concerning the Russian Mafia, but Stabenow changed my mind. Although I missed reading about the folks back in Niniltna, the introduction to the people of Bering was a true joy. Jim Chopin has a prominent role here and the insights into his character are very reveling. I also enjoyed a surprising revelation concerning Kate's grandmother, Ekaterina. The descriptions of Kate's dog, Mutt (one of my favorite characters) are, as always, vivid and alive. A word of warning: if you are a big fan of the FBI, you should know that the two FBI agents in this story are not portrayed in a very favorable light. I have read all of Stabenow's previous Kate Shugak mysteries, so it was easy for me to pick up where the story left off last time, but this probably isn't where a reader new to the series should begin. For a true understanding of Kate, it would be best to start at the beginning (A Cold Day For Murder). It was easy getting into this story and it held my attention throughout. The ending was spectacular.

This book was a fun read for me, since I am from Alaska. Indeed, many of his characterizations about the people here are accurate--this state is full of quirky characters looking to escape one thing or another in their lives! It was also interesting to read about the places he visited, since I have been lucky enough to visit many of them.

However, I found his blatant bias against development and the oil industry disturbing. I found myself contstantly wanting to remind him that without those planes and automobiles, which require oil in one form or another, he never would have been able to visit all the places in Alaska he wrote about. The first oil was just going through the pipeline when he was here, yet he had already made up his mind that oil development was "bad."

I hope Mr. McGinnis doesn't drive a car or heat his home with oil--ditto for all the other environmentalists that want to lock up Alaska.

McGinniss' picture of the Last Frontier definitely squares with the descriptions my wife (a sourdough, 32 years in Alaska) shares with me. Between her and Mr. Bane, below, I'm pretty confident in its accuracy.

But that isn't very important, because as you will see, telling tall tales to chichoccos (tenderfeet) is so Alaskan that if McGinniss had fabricated a good portion of the material, it would still retain its Alaskan character. What's most important is the close-up view you get of the people, the land, the weather, and the wildlife and the ways they all interact. I don't think McGinniss ate mucktuck in the book (smart man), but he immersed himself in Alaska pretty deeply nonetheless. A very easy read; that rare book that is light and deep at the same time.

This magnificiently written "fly-on-the-wall" narrative about The Last Frontier is pretty dead-on and holds up after 20 odd years later. I have travelled many portions of the state on leisure expeditions and felt his emotions throughout each page. The most valuable asset of this book is its ability to both entertain the sourdough among us and in addition vividly depict the Alaskan aura for those who have never been. There are no slow moments: witty, poignant, and eloquent structure make this the most enjoyable book I have ever read - in actual fact, it is the Only book I have ever read whereas upon finishing the last page, I immediately began reading again! Favorite anecdote: In describing the residents of Alaska as thinking about Alaska all the time as if it was an entity onto itself in their lives, he states that this is a unique state of mind in that you would not, say, find people walking around Toledo contemplating the "Essence of Ohio".

The reader for this book is impossible for me to listen to without gritting my teeth. Maybe this series is better in written form.

I'm not that I understand why so many other reviewers gave this book 5 starts. The book was good but not great. This is my first Liam Campbell mystery and, sorry, I didn't find Liam Campbell to be an exceptionally compelling or inventive character.

Ok, that said, this is a very good read. I really enjoyed the picture the author paints of the Alaskan bush. What a setting for a murder mystery? Beyond Liam Campbell, we meet a number of characters who are riddled with their own problems and connected by a series of creepy deaths. This book reinforced the notion that one wouldn't want to get lost in the rugged Alaskan outback amongst the frigid temperature, the lack of daylight, and the beers.

I look forward to reading more from Dana Stabenow.

This is the third story in the Liam Campbell series by Stabenow.

If you like the Kate Shugak stories you will also like this series. I admit that I jumped in at the third story here but I am now going back to get the rest.

Liam is forced to solve a serial murder case though at first no one is sure that it is a serial case. It seems with different weapons and the distances apart that they are not connected. But, as the story progresses you see how they are connected and how eventually things come together. As usual Stabenow also makes the characters very real as well as the difference in the remote parts of Alaska and family values. She describes the setting as well as the lifestyles fantastically.

Another winner by Stabenow.

Sue Henry is back to her best form in this sixth book of the Alaska Mystery Series. Jessie Arnold decides to forego the Iditerod in order to compete in the less famous but more rugged Yukon Quest. Partway through the race, one of the mushers is kidnapped and Jessie is asked to deliver ransom to the kidnappers while she is in the middle of the race. As always, Henry's descriptions make the reader feel the freezing temperatures and stark beauty of the Yukon and the Alaskan wilderness. She also describes well the feelings of the characters who are put in dangerous situations. Henry deals with Jessie's ambivalent feelings about her relationship with Alex Jensen in this book. This is the best in the series since the first novel, Murder on the Iditerod Trail.

I can never be critical of a book that transports me to the beauty of Alaska and the Yukon Territory. Sue Henry gives such great visuals through Jessie that I feel like I am in the sled with her. I especially enjoy the detail given to the dogs. Sled dogs are marvelous animals and the relationship between musher and dogs is so well illustrated in these pages. I enjoyed it as much as Murder on the Iditarod Trail.

I discovered Sue Henry only a few months ago and devoured all her books in a short period of time. I read them in almost one sitting.

Ms. Henry's books concentrate on Alaskan history and an environment few of us can imagine, fabulous characters, and page-turning mystery and excitement. I find that I'm torn between Evelyn Wood-ing it to find out what happens and re-reading passages again and again because of the flow of the words and the descriptive phrases and language.

Jessie Arnold is taking her team on the Yukon Quest this year, instead of the familiar Iditarod. The Yukon Quest is run shortly before the Iditarod and she's decided to try the race from Canada into Fairbanks, Alaska. It's earlier in the year, the trail is rougher and the conditions harsher, but she's eagerly up to the challenge.

Racing, or involved behind-the-scenes, are several friends and acquaintances, legends and loners. It's exciting when you realize that this race, like the Iditarod, honors people who forged this area for the rest of us. A wonderful mix of history and current events, the race gets going and a novice racer is kidnapped and Jessie is singled out by the kidnappers to be the go-between.

Plus, Jessie's got her own personal problems to sort out. Gee, as if running the race for the first time weren't enough to deal with!

I love this book and was truly sorry to get to the end of it. July 5th can't come fast enough for me - that's when Ms. Henry's next book comes out.

"If it looks like a motive, if it acts like means, if it quacks like opportunity..." That ducky paraphrase is one of the good things about this mystery, Dana Stabenow's first in the "Liam Campbell" series. This time, it's as if Alice's Queen of Hearts ("Off with their heads!") is loosed upon an airport in Southwest Alaska. Beware the prop blades!

The Stabenow oeuvre (Campbell and Kate Shugak, who will subsequently team up in "Midnight Come Again" ) offers moving verbal snapshots of Alaska along with ice-cracklin' good "Whodunnits." At times, this one tilted too much toward Harlequin bodice-buster for my tastes. And "Doing the box thing" (Campbell's diagramming of people and interrelationships involved in a case) would be much more effective if, like Ed McBain's 87th Precinct books, the author and publisher actually visually (not just a verbal description) SHOW the reader the document to which they refer.

I have not read all the series, nor read them in order, but I'm going to give it a go. The inhabitants are an interesting, entertaining, quirky bunch with whom I look forward to getting better acquainted.

The book hit the ground running with action. It gave an excellent insight to the Alaskan geography, inhabitants and infrastructure. I found the main character, Trooper Liam Campbell to remind me of Dudley Dooright on more than one occasion. I look forward to reading the sequel, So Sure Of Death. I would like to get to know the main characters better.

Also, I found the writer's style a little difficult to get used to and found myself rereading sentences to glean the meaning. All in all a good book.

Like many other reviewers and fans of Kate Shugak, I was a bit reluctant to read the Liam Campbell series. It couldn't be as good. Well, I was wrong. It may even be better.

I suspect that Stabenow was simply getting bored with Kate and wanted to write something a little different. Well, in Liam she's created a great format to tell us about that unusual species, the Alaskan Male. (Hey, they even have - or had - magazine about the phenomenon.) A healthy chunk of this book is about the war between the sexes, Alaskan style. Sure, the mystery takes a back seat but the humorous observations more than made up for it.

As for the mystery, Liam is literally landing at the airport when the first suspicious death occurs. By the time the mystery is resolved, the reader has met a cast of eccentric characters that somehow ring entirely true, learned A LOT about herring roe fishing, and gotten under the skin of a macho man dealing with his world seemingly falling apart. There's plenty of crime in Newenham, much of it falling into the boozed up small town variety (shooting the jukebox and the post office) but something deeper and uglier is going on. There's an amazing amount of money at stake in the herring season. Could that be the cause? Or is it just small town romance gone wrong?

Bottom-line: A genuinely enjoyable read even if Stabenow digresses from the mystery plot at times. Liam Campbell is a nice mix of too good to be true and 1990's angst inside. I'll be reading the next book in the series soon.

I enjoyed this book very very much! I would recommend it to everyone. It is full of suspense, action and mystery! This is definitely on the best books i have ever read!

Death Walk is a great book! I really enjoyed reading it! It's about a boy named Joel who is trying to survive in Alaska with a man named Mike who is a fugitive,but what makes this story great is that he is on the run from murderers!

Although I don't read many books, probably have only read like 10 in my life, I would definitely say this is the best and most suspensful book I have read. It was full of suspense and action from beginning to end. It kept me reading it. I would definitely recommend for all of you to read this whether you're 9 or 90. This is, by far, the best book I have ever read in my life and would definitely recommend it for anyone who likes suspense and action.

The author writes with a 20-20 hindsight that doesn't even begin to try to understand the bomb, the Cold War, or the nature of those times. What point was there in writing an anti-nuclear book about a nuclear detonation that NEVER happened?

Behind the blithe title of this book is a serious work. More, it's an important book. Its subject is Project Chariot, a proposed nuclear excavation on Alaska's Bering Strait. Project Plowshare, initiated in the late 50's, was the umbrella effort to put nuclear explosions to work for non-military purposes, and Project Chariot was billed as one of its first trials. The Firecracker Boys is the history of the conception, marketing, and eventual failure by the nuclear establishment in the face of a burgeoning environmental movement.

But the book is more than a history; it's the story of the the people on both sides of the fight, and of nuclear testing.There are few books which analyze the history of nuclear testing in the United States, and while detailing the story of Project Chariot, Dan O'Neill gives the most comprehensive history I've yet read of nuclear testing in general. This was surprising to me because I have been in search of such a book, and was delighted to discover it behind what would seem to be a narrow slice of the annals of nuclear testing.

O'Neill shows us the world of the Eskimos who, for centuries or longer, lived not far from the selected site of the harbor which was to be blasted from the Bering shore. We also get a view into the life and motivations of Edward Teller, the vociferous proponent of Plowshare's geographical engineering, and other nuclear scientists and officials: "If your mountain isn't in the right place, drop us a card". In addition, the Atomic Energy Commission, in an effort to appear interested in the safety of such a detonation, instituted a program of scientific studies of the site and of the Eskimos nearby. When the biologists, geologist and sociologists refused to be cowed and censored by the AEC, the scientists spoke out at great risk in order to let the truth be known.

The struggle for the truth, as told by O'Neill, is an important element of the book, and a cautionary tale for today. The U.S. Government, under the auspices of the AEC, misled and deceived the citizens of the U.S. about the safety and necessity of nuclear testing. The author patiently outlines the contrast between recently declassified materials, and what the officials of the AEC were saying to the press, the Eskimos and to the American public about the dangers of fallout from nuclear testing. No doubt, the AEC felt it was justified in such disregard and duplicity in the name of national security and of the progress of science. When agents of the government act in a manner beyond accountability and scrutiny, and with ideological obsessiveness, the result is usually detrimental to the public. In this well written and well researched book, Dan O'Neill tells a mostly forgotten story which every American should know.

I cannot count the number of times I looked up from this book and stared into space with complete disbelief. To think that someone in the Cold War era might think it was just fine to detonate nuclear devices near an ancient community--in my backyard--baffled me.

But then, I missed such days. This book therefore was an excellent insight to the diminsions of the Cold War that would consider such explosions. The author ovbiously spent years researching the project, the people and the purpose; his work speaks well for Alaskan Intellect. But beyond that, the story is facinating and the reader is drawn in. (However, it does miss that fifth star because it drags around page 60...enough that I put it down for two months.)

My next stop after this book was the Bikini Atoll and Marshall Islands, as THE FIRECRACKER BOYS absolutely peaked my interst in Cold War nuclear testing. It should do the same for others who read it.