Fire and Ice by Dana Stabenow

We (my sister and I) have been enjoying Stabenow's Kate Shugak books so much that we were disappointed to arrive at the end of the series. OK, there is this year's book, which is out both in hardcover and for Kindle - but the Kindle version costs more than a paperback will when those are released. Our guess is that the price will go down when the paper version comes out - and we aren't hooked enough to pay $13 for an electronic book which costs virtually nothing to produce. I understand the bookseller and the author trying to maximize their profits, but they can maximize them on someone else's credit card. I can always get it at the library if I really can't wait ---

After all that digression, so - I decided to try her other series of Alaska mystery stories - about an Alaska State Trooper named Liam Campbell. The price of this book, the first in the series, was more in line with my available funds - $0.00. The motives are pretty transparent here, too. This series never caught on like the Kate Shugak series and this pricing on the first book is an attempt to get readers to try it - and maybe they'll like it.

I liked it well enough at the price, and I was willing to go $5 for the second. I'm not sure they are worth much more than that, though.

In a foreword to the electronic edition, Stabenow explains that her editor at whatever publishing moved to another company. She had been suggesting for some time that Stabenow write a book with Chopper Jim central and after settling in at her new job, called to remind Stabenow of the idea. Stabenow's agent stomped all over that notion for issues of contract violation and little details such as that. So, we have a new Alaska State Trooper - Liam Campbell. He works a different part of the state and will never run into Sgt. Chopin or Kate.

As we open, Campbell has been demoted and apparently sent to this new assignment on a punishment tour. It seems that troopers under his command couldn't be bothered to answer calls about a family missing in bad weather and the family of five with three small children freezes to death in their vehicle on the Denali highway. I have been wondering if this is a "ripped from the headlines" story or what. It seems so completely unlike the Troopers as we have seen them in the persona of Jim Chopin. In addition to these career issues, Liam was cheating on his wife with his pilot. Then his wife and adored young son were hit by a drunk driver. The child was killed and his wife has been in an irreversible coma for the last three years. Very depressing all round.

Stabenow is back on the mystical thing. When Campbell arrives at his new assignment, he is adopted by a raven who hangs out and fusses at him all the time. This, of course, is of great interest to the Native Alaskans since the raven is a mystical creature in their mythology. We also have the local shaman who forces him to start learning tai chi.

I'm not quite sure why he is sleeping in his office since there is a perfectly respectable hotel in town.

We open with a fairly gruesome murder. A man is essentially decapitated by the propeller of a small plane. Later on we have a more conventional knifing and both crimes do eventually connect.