A Cold Day for Murder
The Edgar Award-winning introduction to private investigator Kate Shugak, A Cold Day for Murder is the first in Dana Stabenow’s critically acclaimed Kate Shugak Mysteries.
Kate Shugak is a native Aleut working as a private investigator in Alaska. She’s five foot, one inch tall, carries a scar that runs from ear to ear across her throat, and owns a half-wolf, half-husky dog named Mutt. Resourceful, strong-willed, defiant, Kate is tougher than your average heroine – and she needs to be to survive the worst the Alaskan wilds can throw at her.
Somewhere in twenty million acres of forest and glaciers, a ranger has disappeared: Mark Miller. Missing six weeks. It’s assumed by the Alaskan Parks Department that Miller has been caught in a snowstorm and frozen to death: the typical fate of those who get lost in this vast and desolate terrain. But as a favour to his congressman father, the FBI send in an investigator: Ken Dahl. Last heard from two weeks and two days ago.
Now it’s time to send in a professional. Kate Shugak: light brown eyes, black hair, five foot one with an angry scar from ear to ear. Last seen yesterday…
A Fatal Thaw
On her homestead in the middle of twenty million acres of national Park, Aleut P.I. Kate Shugak is caught up in spring cleaning, unaware that just miles away a man’s sanity is breaking. When the sound of gunfire finally dies away, nine of his neighbors lie dead in the snow. But did he kill all nine, or only eight? The ninth victim was killed with a different weapon. It’s up to Kate and her husky-wolf sidekick Mutt to untangle the life of the dead blonde with the tarnished past and find her killer. It won’t be easy; every second Park rat had a motive. Was it one of her many spurned lovers? Was a wife looking for revenge? Or did a deal with an ivory smuggler go bad? Even Trooper Jim Chopin, the Park’s resident state trooper, had a history with the victim. Kate will need every ounce of determination to find the truth before Alaska metes out its own justice…
Dead in the Water
Once, Kate Shugak was the star investigator of the Anchorage D.A.’s office. Now she’s gone back to her Aleut roots in the far Alaska north- where her talent for detection makes her the toughest crime-tracker in that stark and mysterious land.
Two crewmen of the crab vessel Avilda are missing—presumed dead—under very suspicious circumstances. The Bering Sea offers ample means and opportunity, but without bodies, a motive, or evidence of foul play, the DA doesn’t have a case. And so, freelancing again for her former employer, Kate Shugak finds herself working undercover in one of Alaska’s most dangerous professions: crab fisherman. It’s an assignment that will take her from the debauchery of Dutch Harbor to the most isolated of the Aleutians, and if the job itself doesn’t kill her, her unsavory crewmates just might.
Third in Stabenow’s Edgar Award-winning series of Alaskan mysteries, Dead in the Water is richly informed by the author’s own upbringing aboard an Alaskan fishing vessel.
A Cold-Blooded Business
Once, Kate Shugak was the star investigator of the Anchorage D.A.’s office. Now she’s gone back to her Aleut roots in the far Alaska north – where her talent for detection makes her the toughest crime-tracker in that stark and mysterious land…
Work hard, play hard. That’s the credo on the oilfields of Alaska’s North Slope, where harsh conditions and long, isolated shifts make for some of the best-paid jobs in the state. Management typically turns a blind eye to off-hours drinking and gambling, but a spate of drug-related deaths means it’s time for Royal Petroleum to get its house in order. Working on behalf of the Anchorage DA, Kate Shugak is brought in undercover to identify the dealer and shut down the flow of cocaine. Of course, the dealer might have some very different ideas.
Informed by her own years working on the North Slope, Dana Stabenow’s A Cold-Blooded Business captures a slice of life in a very Alaskan milieu.
Play with Fire
A ten-year-old boy ‘hires’ Kate to find his 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.
Blood will Tell
It’s a crisp, snowless October in The Park. The root cellar is full, the cordwood is stacked, the oil drums are filled and there’s a freshly-butchered moose in her cache, but Kate Shugak must leave her cabin and head into the chaos of Anchorage, where the Alaska Federation of Natives’ annual convention is being held. Why? Because board members of the Niniltna Native Association have been dying… board members who just happened to oppose a lucrative new development project. If it’s just a coincidence, perhaps Kate will find nothing, but this is Alaska—politics and profit are constantly at odds with conservation and traditional practices, and anyone looking too closely is likely to discover something unsavory.
Breakup
In Breakup, Kate Shugak’s loyalties – to the land, her heritage, her home – are put to the test when a series of mishaps lead to murder. April in Alaska is typically a period of rebirth and renewal, and after the long winter Kate has nothing more strenuous on her agenda than paying her taxes. But mayhem abounds as the meltoff flows; this year’s thaw is accompanied by rampaging bears, family feuds, and a plane crash quite literally in Kate’s own backyard. What begins as a series of headaches escalates into possible murder when a dead body is found near her homestead. Initially unwilling to involve herself in the investigation, preferring instead to write off each odd occurrence as a breakup-related peculiarity, Kate is drawn irresistibly to seek the truth. Compelled by her friends to act as problem solver and guided by the spirit of her Aleut grandmother, she finds herself slowly taking on the role of clan leader, a post she is bound to by honor and blood. As breakup becomes increasingly fraught with danger and destruction, Kate must decide whether she can cross the line from passive observer to instrument of change, assuming the role of elder as the mantle of responsibility is passed.
Killing Grounds
Deckhanding for Old Sam Dementieff on board the fishing tender Freya, Kate helps haul in salmon, halibut, and the body of a widely disliked fisherman, whose apparent murder is greeted with such boisterous rejoicing that she’s unsure whether to arrest the killer or give him a medal.
Drafted by State Trooper Jim Chopin to assist in the investigation, Kate draws up a list of suspects that includes the dead man’s troubled teenaged son and daughter, his not-so-grief-stricken widow, and half the skippers of the fishing fleet. At the same time, Kate’s Aleut aunties, attending a fish camp on Amartuq Creek, are mixed up in some fishy dealings of their own, which Kate must prove do not include murder.
The call of the wild should never be underestimated in politics, in commercial fishing, or in murder.
Hunter’s Moon
Guiding becomes a deadly business when Kate Shugak accepts a contract to shepherd a group of German computer executives on an Alaskan hunting retreat. As the fog rolls in and people start dying, Kate and her boyfriend Jack discover how very seriously their charges take the sport. A hunter’s moon signals a season of gathering and plenty, but Kate finds herself out of resources and at her most vulnerable. She must find the strength to not only survive, but repay. This time, the guide becomes the huntress.
Midnight Come Again
Edgar Award winner Dana Stabenow has written nine atmospheric crime novels featuring the very prickly, very human Kate Shugak, but her novels also have a scene-stealing costar: Alaska, unforgiving, breathtaking, dangerous, and beautiful. Stabenow’s evocation of this wilderness, combined with her talent for bringing characters to life and creating knuckle-whitening suspense, has made her “one of the strongest voices in crime fiction.” (“Seattle Times”).
Now in “Midnight Come Again,” all these elements come together for Stabenow’s most compelling Kate Shugak novel to date.
Kate, a former investigator for the Anchorage D.A. and now a P.I. for hire, is missing after a winter spent in mourning. Alaska State Trooper Jim Chopin, Kate’s best friend, needs her to help him work a new case. He discovers her hiding out in Bering, a small fishing village on Alaska’s western coast, living and working under an assumed name– working hard, as eighteen-hour workdays seem to be her only justification for getting up in the morning. But before they can even discuss Kate’s last several months, or what Jim is doing looking for her in Bering, they’re up to their eyes in Jim’s case, which is suddenly more complicated– and more dangerous– than they suspected.
A magnificent crime novel about life in America’s last wilderness, the heart-wrenching grief that goes with love, and murder, “Midnight Come Again” is Dana Stabenow’s best novel to date.
The Singing of the Dead
Kate Shugak joins 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 is to become her shadow, watching the crowds at rallies and fund-raisers. But just as she’s getting started, the campaign is rocked by the murder of their staff researcher. 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 of 1915. Little can she guess the impact a ninety-year-old unsolved case might have on a modern-day psychotic killer…
A Fine and Bitter Snow
Change never comes easy so when the news breaks that the new administration oil might be drilling for oil soon in a wildlife preserve in southeastern Alaska, home to P.I. Kate Shugak, battle lines are quickly drawn across the community. But for Kate, who hasn’t been able to get back into her daily life ever since her lover’s violent death a few months ago, it’s a welcome reprieve from doing nothing.
Tensions run high when Kate’s friend and chief park ranger, Dan O’Brien, is deemed “too green” for them by management and asked to take early retirement. Kate rallies the troops to fight for his job, but before she can really start throwing her weight around, a longtime resident is found brutally murdered. Alaska State Trooper Jim Chopin enlists Kate in the investigation, and it isn’t long before she discovers that when it comes to the beauty and danger of living and dying in Alaska, nothing is as simple as it seems…
A Grave Denied
Everyone knew Len Dreyer, a handyman for hire in the Park near Niniltna, Alaska, but no one knew anything else about him. Even Kate Shugak hired him to thin the trees on her 160-acre homestead and was planning to ask him to help build a small second cabin on her property for Johnny Morgan, a teenaged boy in her care. But she, the Park’s unofficial p.i., seems to have known less about him than anyone.
Alaska is a place where anybody can bury his history and start fresh, and for any reason, but this particular mystery comes to light when Len Dreyer turns up murdered. His body is discovered, frozen solid, in the path of a receding glacier with the hole from a shotgun blast in his chest. No one even knew he was missing, but it turns out he’s been missing for months.
Alaska State Trooper Jim Chopin asks Kate to help him dig into Dreyer’s background, in the hope of finding some reason for his murder. She takes the case, mindful of the need for gainful employment as she copes with her responsibility for Johnny, a constant reminder of his father, her dead lover. Little does she imagine that by trying to provide for him she just might put him right in the path of danger.
A Taint in the Blood
Thirty-one years ago in Anchorage, Alaska, Victoria Pilz Bannister Muravieff was convicted of murdering her seventeen-year-old son William. The jury returned a quick verdict of guilty, believing the prosecutor’s claims that she had set fire to her own home with both her sons inside; William died and the other, Oliver, narrowly escaped. Victoria was sentenced to life in prison without parole, and though she pled not guilty at the trial, she never again denied her guilt.
Now her daughter, Charlotte Muravieff, has hired Kate Shugak to clear her mother’s name. Her daughter has always believed in her innocence, and now that Victoria has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, Charlotte wants her free. Kate is the only p.i. Charlotte can find who’s willing to take such a long-shot case. Kate, on the other hand, is only willing because she’s suddenly a single parent to a teenager, a teenager she hopes will decide to go to college. Besides, it can’t be bad to do a favor for the Bannister family, one of the wealthiest and most prominent families in Alaska’s short history.
As Kate begins an investigation, Victoria protests, refusing to cooperate. But soon it seems she isn’t the only one who wants to leave the past in the past. In this spell-binding novel, Kate’s confrontation with thirty years of secrets and regret-and murder-in one of Alaska’s most powerful families shows award-winning crime writer Dana Stabenow at the top of her game.
A Deeper Sleep
Kate Shugak is determined to convict the odious Louis Deem, who has been arrested and tried for several serious crimes but never convicted.
This time, Kate is convinced, it will be different. But when the jury returns a verdict of not guilty, Kate believes that Deem has literally got away with murder. And when, a few weeks later, two people are killed after an apparent robbery, Kate can’t help but believe that Deem is involved…
Whisper to the Blood
A mining company has discovered a rich mineral deposit in Alaska’s enormous Iqaluk Wildlife Refuge. Politicos see dollar signs for the state, but Ninilta residents, who live near the proposed site, are split: Will outsiders take the jobs? Will the environment be harmed by pollution? Will roads disintegrate . . . tourists invade? As the new chairperson of Ninilta’s Native Association, a job she never wanted, Kate is embarassingly ill-equipped to handle the questions. Nor is she prepared when two individuals associated with the company turn up dead.
A Night too Dark
In Alaska, somebody disappears every day. Hunters who head into the wilderness… Fishermen who brave the great rivers…Tourists who attempt to do both. In Aleut detective Kate Shugak’s Park, people have been falling off the grid quite a bit lately. And as she and state trooper Jim Chopin are about to realize, it’s got something to do with the recent discovery of the world’s second-largest gold mine in their very own backyard.
A hostile environmental activist organization has embraced Alaska’s Suulutaq Mine as its reason for being, attracting more attention than many of the locals can tolerate. So it’s almost a relief when Kate finally finds a body—this, more than politics, she can handle. Until the identity of the body vanishes, too… Now it’s up to Kate and Jim to dig deeper into the mining controversy and find the truth about what’s going on in her homeland. Even if that means facing down an enemy who will kill to keep certain secrets buried…
Though Not Dead
The residents of Alaska’s largest national park are stunned by the death of one of their oldest members, eighty-seven-year-old Sam Dementieff…even investigator Kate Shugak. Sam, a lifelong resident, was dubbed the “father” of all of the Park rats—even though he had no children of his own. Kate, his niece, is surprised to discover that in his will he’s left her everything, including a letter instructing her simply to, “find my father.” In the three days after Kate begins her search through Sam’s background, she gets threatened—and worse. Kate struggles to fulfill Sam’s last wish without losing her own life to the people who are following her every move. Long-lost family secrets and fatal consequences are interwoven with the epic history of an unforgiving land.
Restless in the Grave
New York Times bestseller Dana Stabenow returns with her most outstanding novel yet, teaming up two of her most beloved characters, Aleut private investigator Kate Shugak and Alaska state trooper Liam Campbell, in the same story for the first time.Alaska aviation entrepreneur Finn Grant died in the fiery crash of his Piper Super Cub. Someone sabotaged his engine, and virtually everyone in southwestern Alaska has a motive, including his betrayed wife, his bullied children, and Liam’s wife, bush pilot Wyanet Chouinard. With few places to turn, Liam asks his former mentor Niniltna post commander Sergeant Jim Chopin, for help, and Jim quickly brings Kate onto the case.Working undercover as—of all things—a waitress at Bill’s Bar and Grill, Kate learns over beer and burgers that Grant’s business had expanded meteorically over the last two years. After buying the closed Air Force base south of town from the federal government at a bargain-basement price, he became a fixed-base operator running his fishing, hunting, and flight-seeing business, servicing planes flying through the area, and most interestingly and lucratively, getting into the air freight business. But what kind of freight was he moving, and where?The answers involve Kate in 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 a treat for fans and another outstanding addition to Dana Stabenow’s acclaimed and award-winning series.
Bad Blood
One hundred years of bad blood between two Alaskan villages come to a boil when the body of a young Kushtaka man is found wedged in a fish wheel. Sergeant Jim Chopin’s prime suspect is a Kuskulana man who is already in trouble in both villages for falling in love across the river. But when he disappears, both tribes refuse to speak to Jim – so when there’s a second murder which looks suspiciously like payback, Jim calls on Kate Shugak for help.
Now Kate must untangle the village tales of tragedy and revenge if she is to find the truth before it’s too late…
Less Than a Treason
Two thousand people go missing in Alaska every year. They vanish in the middle of mountain footraces, on fishing boats in the Bering Sea, on small planes in the Bush. Now a geologist known for going walkabout with his rock hammer has disappeared from the Suulutaq Mine in the Park. Was it deliberate? An accident? Foul play? Kate Shugak may be the only person who can find out.
But for the fact that Kate, too, is now among the missing…
No Fixed Line
It is New Year’s Eve, nearly six weeks into an off-and-on blizzard that has locked Alaska down, effectively cutting it off from the outside world. But now there are reports of a plane down in the Quilak mountains. With the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board — responsible for investigating aviation incidents) unable to reach the crash site, ex-Trooper Jim Chopin is pulled out of retirement to try to identify the aircraft, collect the corpses, and determine why no flight has been reported missing. But Jim discovers survivors: two children who don’t speak a word of English. Meanwhile, PI Kate Shugak receives an unexpected and unwelcome accusation from beyond the grave, a charge that could change the face of the Park forever.
Not the Ones Dead
The gripping new Kate Shugak novel by New York Times bestselling author Dana Stabenow. What seems a tragic accident soon becomes a murder investigation as Kate is drawn into a case of political intrigue.
A mid-air collision in the Alaskan wilderness between two small aircraft leaves ten people dead. Was it a bird strike, pilot error… or premeditated murder?
Then an eleventh body is found in the wreckage: a man shot gangland style, twice in the chest and once in the head.
In an investigation that reaches to the highest levels of government, justice may not be served, but Kate Shugak is determined that the truth will out, even at the risk of her life and the lives of those she loves most.
My Take
This is #23 in what has been and continues to be one of my favorite mystery series. (I’ve read them all, though it’s been four years almost to the day since the last one.) I love the descriptions of the Park and its people. That’s why I keep coming back. The mysteries themselves are secondary. I like how Kate’s world is different now, and the addition and growth of new characters, like Johnny and Van, now adults.
There was less suspense in this one. More of a slow burn. I liked that; it gets unrealistic when everyone is always getting shot at or running off doing stupid things. I like Stabenow’s willingness to include recent history and issues. I know a lot of us would like to forget COVID and everything it brought to the surface but we can’t unless we want to repeat it.
Besides this series Dana Stabenow has an Alaska series based on Liam Campbell, an Alaska State Trooper, and two books based on the Coast Guard in Alaska. Those are also good, though I don’t like them as well as the Kate Shugak series. In other genres she has a Star Svensdotter sci-fi series and the Silk and Song Trilogy, a historical fiction series. And now I see she has a series based in Cleopatra’s Egypt, so my want to read list has expanded!