Play With Fire by Dana Stabenow

Play With Fire by Dana Stabenow (audio, fifth in series)
Protagonist: Kate Shugak
Setting: Alaska
Rating: 3.7

As I’ve said before, these early Stabenow books are light on mystery, but big on descriptions and characterization. In Play With Fire, it’s summer, and hot, for once. Kate is picking mushrooms, suddenly a big cash crop following a forest fire that provided the right conditions. She’s helping her paraplegic friend Bobby and his new lover, Dinah. In the forest, she stumbles across a much-decomposed body. She figures out soon enough who he is, but not why his disappearance hasn’t been reported for 10 months. There’s a lot of digression in this novel about religious fundamentalists (who are a major part of the plot) and the education of native Alaskan children (the victim was a teacher). While I agree with Shugak’s (or Stabenow’s?) views on both topics, she does come across as preachy. There is, however, a touching scene where we learn more about Kate’s early years in college – and we gain greater insight into the culture clash that many young Alaskans must experience. At times like this, Stabenow is at her best. It’s a series I’ll keep reading.

A Cold-Blooded Business by Dana Stabenow

A Cold-Blooded Business by Dana Stabenow (audio, fourth in series)
Protagonist: Kate Shugak
Setting: Prudhoe Bay, Alaska
Rating: 4.0

Kate Shugak is hired by a large oil company to investigate who is bringing drugs into the camp. She goes undercover as a "roustabout," quickly finding out that drug use is indeed rampant among the employees. She stumbles onto the bad guys partly by detection work and partly by luck. While the plot is thin on the detecting, we forgive Stabenow. I read her books mostly for the descriptions of Alaska and the native culture.

This is a series I recommend reading in order. The first one, A Cold Day for Murder, begins Kate's career, when a park ranger and an Anchorage investigator, goes missing. In the second, A Fatal Thaw, a mass murderer shoots up eight bodies. But a ninth person appears to be killed by a different rifle. In the third, Dead in the Water, Kate goes undercover on a crabber ship, to find out what happened to two deckhands that disappeared. Each book, so far, has been set in a different locale. Whether it's a large national park or the confines of a crabber, Stabenow succeeds in showing us another part of her state each time.

Stabenow herself sums up her 16-book series in this cute YouTube video. Be forewarned, though -- there is one spoiler.