A cold day for murder

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

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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 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.

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A quick read, and I really came to like Kate's brusque nature and way of relating to people. The solution to the mystery itself wasn't particularly satisfying. I didn't find myself having an AHA moment or slapping my forehead because I should have figured it out. I believe this was the first of the

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Kate books, though, so perhaps the mysteries got more compelling later in the series.

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A reasonably interesting start to what is now a long murder mystery series set in Alaska. This first book in the series is from 1992. When I started on it I was slightly put off by a number of cultural references. I got the John Wayne one in the opening paragraph (the 1960 film North To Alaska) -

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the rest were lost on me. I guess I didn't watch the right TV shows or movies or read the same books. The one in the second paragraph references Sam Magee in the oven, so this, from Wikipedia: "The Cremation of Sam McGee is among the most famous of Robert W. Service's poems. It was published in 1907 in Songs of a Sourdough. (A "sourdough", in this sense, is a resident of the Yukon.(1) It concerns the cremation of a prospector who freezes to death near Lake Laberge,(2) (spelled "Lebarge" by Service), Yukon, Canada, as told by the man who cremates him. Whew

I read on through this and the story setup began to intrigue me. I know very little about Alaska, but now I know maybe a little more. This turned out to be a reasonably good mystery that clocks in around 200 pages, which is about perfect for me when I want a light read. A newly minted park ranger (with a congressman for a father) has gone missing as well as the investigator sent to find out what happened to him. Our "heroine" Kate Shugak is dispatched to unravel this. There arise some obvious suspects with motives, but of course that would be too simple. There's a complex web of relations and relationships. I just enjoyed the story and didn't try to figure it out so the conclusion was a real surprise for me. This isn't really my style of book though, so I probably won't read more in the series, but I might. I'm glad I gave this a try.

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A rookie federal Park Ranger/son-of-a-congressman, and an investigator sent to find him, go missing in the cold expanse of Kate Shugak's Alaskan Park (occupying "twenty million acres, almost four times the size of Denali National Park but with less than one percent of the tourists.") Reluctantly,

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Kate, a former D.A's investigator herself until a run-in with a child molester left him dead and her soured her on the job and a major portion of "civilization," is on the case.
This is the first of Dana Stabenow's Kate Shugak mystery series, and I'm glad I went back and started at the beginning. The reader is introduced to Jack Morgan, the aforementioned D.A., with whom Kate had an affair before leaving his employ in Anchorage to return home to the environs and inhabitants of her native Village and Park. The characters and locale will become old familiar friends as this series wends on.

The introduction to Jack Morgan is particularly resonant:"He looked like John Wayne ready to run the claim jumpers off his gold mine on that old White Mountain just a little southeast of Nome, if John Wayne had been outfitted by Eddie Bauer." (If you are clueless about the humour, I suggest you go over to videos and get a copy of the movie "North to Alaska" - pay attention to the song being sung during the credits.) That Johnny Horton song is on jukeboxes everywhere here in our part of the Tundra, and everybody sings along ;-) And, speaking of jukeboxes and bars, the scene at Bernie's Bar in the book is really a hoot!

Along the way to finding out what happened to the Ranger and his would-be rescuer, Stabenow gives the reader an overview of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act and life in the villages. It's a good start to a good series and I recommend it.

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I read this several years ago as part of a book club. I remember that we read it in the summer and everyone commented about how cold they felt while reading it. LOL!
Excellent descriptions of Alaska.

First of the Kate Shugak mysteries, in which we meet Kate, Jack, Kate's formidable grandmother Etakerina, the regulars of the Park, and the Park itself. Better on a second reading than I remembered, a great start to a terrific series.

Kate Shugak is hibernating after a horrific crime forces her to leave the Anchorage DA's office. Now a park ranger and the investigator who was tracking him are missing and Kate must find them. With her dog, Mutt, she travels the frozen North finding clues among the natives, oil workers, and other

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"hostiles" of this territory.
A good, fun read.

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This is the first of Stabenow's series of mysteries featuring Kate Shugak. There are now 17 in the series, all set in Alaska, where the author grew up on a 75-foot fishing tender. Kate, once the star investigator of the Anchorage DA's office, has retreated to her grandfather's homestead after a

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horrific injury resulted from her encounter with a man who was molesting his own daughter. Kate's solitary existence is interrupted when her former boss and former lover, Jack Murphy, asks her to investigate the disappearance of a park ranger and the investigator whom Jack had sent to look for him. The two men disappeared inside "The Park," the large area populated by Native Alaskans (Aleuts in this case), and in which Kate grew up.

I'm guessing that Kate's last name comes from the Chugach mpountains and park east of Anchorage. Stabenow has stated that for her as an author, the setting comes first, rather than characters or plot. “After I decide on a location, I figure out who lives there and what kind of trouble they can get up to. I was raised with Aleuts, many of whom were displaced from the Alaska Peninsula and the Aleutian Chain by World War II, so I moved some of them to the Park, and Kate was born.”

Kate is an interesting character; she spends much of this book still getting over being mad at the world, her grandmother, and Jack. In subsequent volumes she deals more with issues related to her tribal identity and responsibilities.

In A Cold Day for Murder, Stabenow tells a story of the tension between traditionalists, led and exemplified by Kate's grandmother, a tribal matriarch, and those who want to escape to the outside world or admit it to the Park. These aspects of the story are interesting; unfortunately they're about all there is. The mystery is
very slight and we aren't really offered the chance to solve it along with Kate. I found the book interesting,
especially aftrer doing a bit of research in order to lead a discussion at my public library, but I would describe it as a novel centered around a mystery rather than a mystery. The style is competent and adequate to the story. It does not add anything to the tale Stabenow is telling, nor does it distract us from the story, which fanciness might have done. A short, fun read.

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A Cold Day For Murder is the first in the Kate Shugak Series. It is also my first experience with author Dana Stabenow. I thought the book was just alright. It was only 200 pages long, so there was not alot of details or anything. I did enjoy the arctic setting and the details of native life and

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culture.

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It’s December in the Park, and a ranger is missing. It’s no great loss to the rest of the Park rats, they figure he’s stumbled into a snowbank and will re-emerge come breakup, just in time for the ground to thaw and them to bury him. But when the man sent to look for him also disappears, Kate

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Shugak, ex-investigator for the Anchorage D.A. and Park homesteader, is sent in search of them both.

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Kate Shugak is asked to look into the disappearance of a park ranger who is the son of a Congressman and of a detective sent to find the ranger. Working for her former employer Jack on behalf of the FBI, Kate returns to the park which was her home for so many years to question relatives and

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friends. It's not long until she's dodging bullets herself. Although this series is long-running, this is the first book that I read in it. I enjoyed the mystery, but I would have enjoyed the book more with a little less profanity which seemed to be concentrated in a few scenes. I will probably read more installments of this series in the future.

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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

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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 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!)

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First book in the Kate Shugak series. Winner of the Edgar Award. Excellent series. Kate is a kick-ass investigator. Lots of great insight in Alaska, the life of the natives, politics, and nature. She also has a half-husky/half-wolf. And lots of attitude.

Kate Shugak used to be an investigator for the DA in Anchorage – until she was seriously injured. Now she lives a reclusive life on the edge of a national park, her familial land where she was raised. When a young park ranger goes missing people assume the winter weather got to the inexperienced

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“Outsider.” But when the seasoned investigator sent to track him down also disappears it’s clear that something more than weather is involved. The ranger’s father is a U.S. Congressman and he brings in the FBI, who puts pressure on local authorities, so her former boss comes to Kate; will she take on this job?

Okay, I wanted to like this. I’ve heard of the series for some time and thought the premise was interesting – a native Aleut, a woman, strong, confident, self-sufficient. Kate is all those things. But she’s so closed-off that we never get any glimpse as to what she is thinking or how she is working out the clues. In fact in one pivotal scene she literally shuts down, staring at nothing, not moving for hours (per the reports of her companions). Then suddenly she’s off on the chase because she knows who did it. This is just weak plotting in a mystery novel and a fatal flaw as far as I’m concerned.

I also thought that most of the characters – especially the native Aleuts – were little more than stereotypes. Surely there must be people living in the park who do not hunt out of season or spend what little money they have drinking.

And I have a bone to pick with the cover art … the images have absolutely NOTHING to do with the story.

On the plus side, it was a fast read, and the next time I need a book set in Alaska for a challenge I might give book #2 a try.

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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

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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 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.

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If you're a fan of Sue Grafton's feisty Kinsey Millhone, you'll know Dana Stabenow's Kate Shugak already. I like her well enough, but I'm not sure that in spite of the fact that she didn't exist before, anyone really had to invent her.

The setting, though, is wonderfully exotic: Alaska is certainly

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a foreign land to me, and I thoroughly enjoyed encountering a whole new way of life and the lexicon that goes with it.

The investigation can seem glacially slow at times, as much Alaskan background and research is delivered between times, but that's OK - and perhaps now that #1 in the series has done this job, #2 etc can get moving in what will soon be more familiar territory.

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Kind of torn on this one.

So much I liked (the characters, the scenes, the setting (Alaskan wilderness)) but yet so much that was just average. I don't like to be told things, I like to be shown them and Dana Stabenow just spent so much time describing Alaska & the native Alaskans instead of using

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her words to show me what it was like.

Wasn't really a mystery either. She spend 90% of the books searching for missing people and then in 5 minutes figured it out but didn't provide the reader with any clues so that we might try to figure it out ourselves.

Probably a 3.5 but Goodreads doesn't do half stars

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First Line: They came out of the south late that morning on a black-and-silver Ski-doo LT.


Somewhere in the endless acres of "The Park" a ranger has gone missing. No one puts up much of a fuss about it, figuring his body will be uncovered in time for the ground to thaw so he can be buried. But when

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a detective sent in to look for the missing ranger disappears as well, something has to be done. The Anchorage, Alaska District Attorney's Office sends two men out, hats in hand, to their former investigator, Kate Shugak. Shugak knows The Park because she was born there. She's an Aleut who left her home village in pursuit of education and a career. In reluctantly agreeing to search for the missing men, Kate finds herself being pulled out of her self-imposed exile back to the life she'd left behind.

This slim little volume is a quick read that introduces the reader to two prime objects: the Alaskan wilderness and the prickly character of Kate Shugak. In many ways, I think my reading experience was tempered by the fact that I'd already read Stan Jones' mystery series set in Alaska that also features a Native American main character. If I'd come to Stabenow's book totally fresh, I would have been much more in awe of what I was reading.

Alaska is shown to be the beautiful, wild place that it is; Shugak is the strong, silent type of female that we're still not quite accustomed to; and although the story line didn't hold many surprises for me, I'll be back for more. This is the first book in a very popular series, and Stabenow not only marks her territory, she populates it with a woman I just have to know more about.

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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

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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.

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I haven't read many crime fiction novels set in Alaska. Similarly while I have heard of Dana Stabenow I have never read one of her books. A COLD DAY FOR MURDER is the first in her Kate Shugak series of which there are now 20, the latest published just this year. See Fantastic Fiction.

I think I

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solved the mystery of what had happened to the two missing people, and who was responsible, about half way through the novel, but that didn't lessen my enjoyment. The characters are well drawn and the plight of the Alaskan Aleuts trying to make their way in a "modern" world is well described. As is the concern of the elders to preserve the old ways and their wish to keep the young people from leaving.

So if you are ready for a new series, maybe this is the one for you. I read it as part of my reading for the USA Fiction Challenge.

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The story was very good, as were the characters. She did a great job of describing the setting in Alaska.

This is a murder mystery set in a national park in Alaska among a native Indian community. The setting is not the usual for me so it adds an interesting aspect to the story. It's not overly complicated except for all the almost endless list of characters who pop in and than pop out again. It's hard

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to keep track of them all as most are related in some sort of way.

A nice quick read.

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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

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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 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.

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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

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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 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.

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