Killing Grounds by Dana Stabenow

Although Stabenow's run at writing science fiction was less than successful, she betrays her affection for the genre in her murder mysteries. There are frequent allusions and references to and quotations from the classics, in this one, Heinlein. And then there's Star Wars. We have a pair of preteen sisters whose sole contribution to the story is their obsession with Star Wars. We first meet them as their mother admonishes them in Yoda-ese, because, she explains, when they are on a tear, that is the only way they will listen to anything she says. Add to that the fact that she is a Presbyterian minister (a sign of progress, Baptists may be the only ones left who don't allow women in the pulpit) who gets to take the summer off, every summer. That seems significantly improbable to me. I don't know much about Alaska, but I am fairly familiar with the functioning of mainstream Protestant churches.

While the Star Wars thing is the contribution of the daughters, the mother/minister has another function in the story of Kate Shugak. In all of these books there have been references to earlier stories, but this time an earlier story actually plays a role in the action of the current story. It isn't a direct line, but Kate's thinking and the consequences thereof are a result of the characters and events of the earlier story. I guess I am too accustomed to try and avoid direct information about the stories in these posts, I shall attempt to address this a little less obliquely. About three books back Kate encounters a fanatical fundamentalist cult led by a truly evil man - who escapes essentially unpunished. When Kate encounters the minister in this story, reacts badly - even rudely - and one of her elders takes her to task for it - by throwing her overboard and allowing her to walk back soaking wet.

She spends a lot of time in this book soaking wet - fortunately, it is high summer in Alaska, not late fall as in the one in which she goes undercover on a crab boat and is thrown overboard. This time we get a good look at the salmon industry - commercial fishing vs sport fishing vs subsistence fishing - along with a simplified course in the political and financial issues governing it.

What I missed in this one was any hint of the mysticism which has faintly colored these stories - unless - one of the sets of voices she hears when she is recovering from her last and most nearly fatal dunking actually belongs to her grandmother Ekaterina and her associates rather than the minister and her daughters, Jack and his son, and the four aunties. I reviewed that section and I don't think it is - I think it is one of the aunties. Oh well, I am nowhere near the end of this series so it may resurface.