Jim took a pull of his Coke. “Have you talked to Ruthe or Dina yet?”
She stared at him.
Old Sam thumped the bar. “Damn good idea.”
Jim kept a steady gaze fixed on Kate’s face.
Kate drained her glass and set it down on the bar with exquisite care. “Good idea,” she said, forcing the words out. “I’ll take a ride up there, see if they’re home.” She held out her arms and Katya flung herself into them.
“Why?” Jim said, handing over the baby. “They’re right over there.”
Kate looked where he was pointing. “Oh.” She gave a stiff nod. “Thanks.”
The two men, three when Bernie sidled up, watched her very straight back march off. “Woman sure is on the prod,” Bernie said.
Old Sam raised his glass of Alaskan Amber draft and regarded it with a thoughtful expression. “Yea-yah,” he said. “Been thinking I’d have a word with Ethan Int-Hout.”
“About what?” Bernie said.
Old Sam took a long, savoring swallow. “Been thinking I’d tell him to shit or get off the pot.”
Jim turned to stare at Old Sam.
Old Sam, well aware of the stare, gazed limpidly at his own reflection in the mirror on the wall at the back of the bar, what he could see through the standing forest of liquor bottles. “Make things easier on everybody all the way around when that broad has a man in her life.”
Jim turned on his stool so he could look Old Sam straight in the eye. “You mean she doesn’t now?”
Old Sam cast his eyes heavenward. “Some men,” he said to Bernie in a withering tone of voice, “some men purely have to be taken by the pecker and led.” He shook his head and finished his beer. “How up are you on your Bible studies, Sergeant?”
“Way down,” Jim said.
“Read up on Jacob,” Old Sam said, and moved to a table with a better view of the game to continue his play-by-play. Michael Jordan was back, and Old Sam was way more interested in that than he was in anybody’s love life.
He didn’t look much like Cupid, but then, he’d never much cared for Ethan Int-Hout, having been corked by his father a time or ten out on the fishing grounds. In his eighty years on the job, Old Sam had had some earned life experience in the dictum, Like father, like son.
And in Like grandmother, like granddaughter. Ekaterina had never been one to go long without a man, either.
Available now
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My thanks to Angela Fiori of the Alaska State Archives Office in Juneau, who disentombed the documents concerning the inquest into the death of Mrs. William C. Harp, also known as Alice Astor and born Eugenie Antionette Felicie Roussey, a real-life good-time girl who served as the model for my own protagonist, and whose 1915 murder remains unsolved to this day;
and to Lael Morgan, whose marvelous book, Good Time Girls of the Alaska-Yukon Gold Rush, first brought Alice and all of Alaska’s early working girls to my attention;
and to Pierre Berton, for writing what remains the best account ever of the Klondike gold rush, The Klondike Fever.
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Kate Shugak hires onto the staff of a political campaign to work security for a Native woman running for state senator. The candidate has been receiving anonymous threats, and Kate, who went to college with two of the staffers, is to become her shadow, watching the crowds at rallies and fundraisers. But just as she’s getting started the campaign is rocked by the murder of their staff researcher, who, Kate discovers, was in possession of some damning information about the pasts of both candidates. In order to track the killer, Kate will have to delve into the past, in particular the grisly murder of a “good-time girl” during the Klondike Gold Rush in 1915. Little can she guess the impact a ninety-year-old unsolved case could have on a modern-day psychotic killer.
REVIEWS
“Kate Shugak is the answer if you are looking for something unique in the crowded field of crime fiction.” Michael Connelly
“One of the strongest voices in crime fiction.” Seattle Times
“Cleverly conceived and crisply written thrillers that provide a provocative glimpse of life as it is lived, and justice as it is served, on America’s last frontier.” San Diego Union-Tribune
“When I’m casting about for an antidote to the sugary female sleuths… Kate Shugak, the Aleut private investigator in Dana Stabenow’s Alaskan mysteries, invariably comes to mind.” New York Times
“Fast and furious adventure.” Kirkus
“Excellent… No one writes more vividly about the hardships and rewards of living in the unforgiving Alaskan wilderness and the hardy but frequently flawed characters who choose to call it home. This is a richly rewarding regional series that continues to grow in power as it grows in length.” Publishers Weekly
“A dynamite combination of atmosphere, action, and character.” Booklist
“Stabenow is blessed with a rich prose style and a fine eye for detail. An outstanding series.” Washington Post
“Full of historical mystery, stolen icons, burglaries, beatings, and general mayhem… The plot bursts with colour and characters… If you have in mind a long trip anywhere, including Alaska, this is the book to put in your backpack.” Washington Times
ABOUT THIS SERIES
Kate Shugak is a native Aleut with a touch of Russian heritage working as a private investigator in Alaska. She’s 5 foot 1 inch tall, carries a scar that runs from ear to ear across her throat and owns a half-wolf, half-husky named Mutt. Orphaned at eight years old, Kate grew up to be resourceful, strong willed and defiant. She is tougher than your average heroine – and she needs to be to survive the worst the Alaskan wilds can throw at her.
Kate used to work as an investigator for the Anchorage DA’s office but after her throat was slashed while saving a child, she resigned from her job, and returned to the log cabin her father built on her tribe’s native lands, deep in Alaska’s largest national park in the shadow of the Quilak Mountains.
For fourteen months Kate remained in the wilderness – her voice cut down to a raspy growl by the jagged scar stretched across her neck. Then, during the worst winter on record, a congressman’s son disappeared... Two weeks later, the DA’s investigator sent to find him was also reported missing. The FBI turned to the one person they knew had the skills to track down the missing men in the depths of an Alaskan winter. This is where you’ll meet Kate in book one, A Cold Day for Murder.
Over the next 19 books, Kate investigates murders both ancient and modern, she works under cover in the Arctic Circle, goes to sea, signs up as a bodyguard, tracks missing tribal relics and fights for the Aleut way of life. Kate will be forced into hiding, she’ll witness the violent death of her closest friend and she’ll face extreme peril herself. She’ll even end up adopting a teenage boy. Just as well that she’ll have Mutt at her side throughout it all.
THE KATE SHUGAK BOOKS IN ORDER
1. A Cold Day for Murder
December – the cruellest month. A park ranger is missing and so is the investigator sent to look for him. Who goes next? There’s only one person who can brave the worst an Alaskan winter can throw at her…
A Cold Day for Murder is available here.
2. A Fatal Thaw
On the first day of spring, a man goes berserk and slaughters eight of his neighbours… but nine bodies are found lying in the snow.
A Fatal Thaw is available here.
3. Dead in the Water
Two crewmen of the fishing vessel Avilda are missing – presumed dead –under very suspicious circumstances and Kate Shugak is going undercover to find out what happened to them. There’s no deadlier profession than deckhand on a crab boat and if the job itself doesn’t kill her, her unsavoury crewmates just might.
Dead in the Water is available here.
4. A Cold-blooded Business
It’s March. Someone is selling drugs to the employees of a Prudhoe Bay oil field company, and the company hires Kate to go undercover and ap
prehend the dealer. But coke isn’t the only illegal substance being dealt...
A Cold-Blooded Business is available here.
5. Play With Fire
A ten-year-old girl ‘hires’ Kate to find her missing father and when Kate stumbles across a body in the woods she fears she may have found him. Finding out what happened will lead Kate to a right-wing religious sect, a conspiracy of silence and a smouldering evil.
Play With Fire is available here.
6. Blood Will Tell
Disputed tribal lands see Kate swap the Bush for Anchorage and the Alaska Federation of Natives convention at the insistence of her grandmother. She wears a dress! And then someone tries to kill her…
Blood Will Tell is available here.
7. Breakup
Breakup is the season of early Spring, when the rivers thaw and the bears wake up... Kate looks into the death of a woman by a bear that doesn’t quite add up.
Breakup is available here.
8. Killing Grounds
If it’s summer, it must be fishing season and Kate, working as a deckhand on Old Sam Dementieff’s fishing boat Freya, finds a body in the water. It’s a fisherman who has been beaten, stabbed, strangled and drowned. Overkill. But why?
Killing Grounds is available here.
9. Hunter’s Moon
September. Kate guides a group of big game hunters. But she rapidly discovers that some in the party may have more than four-legged prey on their trophy list.
Hunter’s Moon is available here.
10. Midnight Come Again
Kate is in hiding. Struggling to cope with what happened in Hunter’s Moon, she’s fled to an isolated fishing village on the Bering coast of Alaska. She’s scarred, scared, and pretending to be someone else… But she’s not the only person in town under an assumed identity.
Midnight Come Again is available here.
11. The Singing of the Dead
When a native candidate for Alaskan State Senator receives death threats, Kate is hired to protect her. What connection do the threats have with a 90 year-old unsolved murder during the Klondike Gold Rush?
The Singing of the Dead is available here.
12. A Fine and Bitter Snow
Battle lines are drawn as the government prepares to drill for oil in a nearby wildlife preserve. As the tension rises, an old-timer is murdered and another stabbed and left for dead. Kate finds herself in the middle of a war…
A Fine and Bitter Snow is available here.
13. A Grave Denied
Students on a field trip discover a frozen body in the mouth of a glacier. With a shotgun wound to its chest. And it’s someone Kate knows well.
A Grave Denied is available here.
14. A Taint in the Blood
A daughter hires Kate to clear her mother of the thirty-year-old murder of her brother. But mother doesn’t want to be cleared. And she’s not the only one who’d rather the past was left alone…
A Taint in the Blood is available here.
15. A Deeper Sleep
Kate is determined to convict Louis Deem, who has been arrested and tried for several serious crimes but never convicted. When a double homicide occurs soon after his latest acquittal, Kate will stop at nothing to get her man.
A Deeper Sleep is available here.
16. Whisper to the Blood
Gold, and lots of it, has been discovered in the Park … a large mining company moves in… and the locals start disappearing.
Whisper to the Blood is available here.
17. A Night Too Dark
When bear-eaten human remains are found near the truck of gold miner Dewayne A. Gammons, it is assumed the remains are his… after all, there was a suicide note in his truck. Weeks later, a wounded and nearly catatonic Gammons stumbles out of the woods. So who did the bears eat?
A Night Too Dark is available here.
18. Though Not Dead
Kate’s uncle Sam dies, leaving her a letter instructing her to ‘find his father’. The problem is Sam’s father disappeared nearly 90 years ago with a priceless tribal artefact…
Though Not Dead is available here.
19. Restless in the Grave
Kate faces her most challenging case to date, one that starts with murder and quickly sprawls into a much larger conspiracy ranging from the darkest family secrets to treason and beyond.
Restless in the Grave is available here.
20. Bad Blood
One hundred years of bad blood between two Alaskan villages comes to a boil when the body of a young man is found. Kate must untangle the village tales of tragedy and revenge if she is to find the truth before it’s too late...
Bad Blood is available here.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dana Stabenow was born in Anchorage, Alaska and raised on a 75-foot salmon fishing boat in the Gulf of Alaska. Her mother was a deckhand and she and Dana spent nearly five years living on board. For the next three decades, Dana refused to eat salmon.
Dana received a BA in Journalism from the University of Alaska, toured the world with a backpack discovering English pubs, German beer and Irish men, before returning to Alaska to work for BP at Prudhoe Bay, inside the Arctic Circle. Knowing that there must be a warmer job out there, she gave it all up to become a writer. In 1991, the first Kate Shugak Mystery A Cold Day for Murder won the Edgar Award for the Best Paperback Novel.
ABOUT HEAD OF ZEUS
We hope you enjoyed this book.
We are Head of Zeus, a brand new publishing house dedicated to new authors, great storytelling, and fabulous ideas.
To find your next read – and some tempting special offers – why not visit our website?
First published in the UK in 2013 by Head of Zeus, Ltd.
Copyright © Dana Stabenow, 2001
The moral right of Dana Stabenow to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
9 7 5 3 1 2 4 6 8
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN (BPB) 9781908800725
ISBN (E) 9781781850213
Printed in Great Britain.
Head of Zeus, Ltd
Clerkenwell House
45-47 Clerkenwell Green
London EC1R 0HT
www.headofzeus.com
CONTENTS
Cover
Dedication
Map
Dawson City December 24, 1897
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Rampart January 14, 1899
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Nome July 1900
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Fairbanks 1907
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Niniltna 1915
Chapter 14
Ninilta April 1915
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Epitaph
Preview
Acknowledgments
Copyright
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