A Fatal Thaw (A Kate Shugak Mystery) - Softcover

Dana Stabenow is the Edgar Award-winning author of Fire and Ice, So Sure of Death, and several other acclaimed mysteries. She lives in Anchorage, Alaska.

Stabenow's ( A Cold Day for Murder ) writing has matured in her second effort featuring native Alaskan sleuth Kate Shugak. The Alaskan terrain and native culture add texture--the narrative includes both a potlatch celebration and an avalanche. Spring brings not only a thaw to the Alaskan wilderness, but a mass murderer. Roger McAniff cracks along with the ice on the first day of spring and goes on a killing spree, murdering nine and wounding two others. Or so it seems until ballistics tests prove that one of the victims, Lisa Getty, was killed by a different rifle. Shugak's investigation reconstructs Getty's life, uncovering her promiscuity, drug-dealing and endangered species-poaching, but all those leads prove false. The investigation reintroduces readers to some of the most intriguing characters from Shugak's previous mystery, including wheelchair-bound black veteran Bobby Clark and Shugak's manipulative grandmother, Ekaterina. Meanwhile, the tension level rises when a park ranger is killed and Shugak herself is wounded by a sniper's rifle, and Stabenow succuessfully sustains the tension until the killer is found.
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