BLOOD WILL TELL

Fresh from killing and dressing a moose, subsistence fisher Kate Shugak (Play With Fire, 1995, etc.) allows her activist grandmother Ekaterina to drag her to big-city Anchorage before Ekaterina's Niniltna Native Association—in town for the annual Alaska Federation of Natives convention—votes whether a disputed parcel of tribal land be open to logging. Ekaterina, who's concerned that the protectionists' narrow majority on the Niniltna board has been disturbed by the death of Kate's cousin Sarah Kompkoff, would be frantic if she knew that the balance on the board is about to be altered further by a fatal accident. Meantime, Kate's lover and former colleague, Anchorage D.A.'s investigator Jack Morgan, is threatened with a custody suit by his bulldog ex. It's obvious from the beginning who's behind the Niniltna deaths, but you'll have a great time along the way to the arrest watching Kate, protesting vigorously, shop for evening wear at Nordstrom's (a cherishable scene), make an impromptu convention speech, break into a shady lawyer's office, sic her half-wolf dog on the bad guys, and plot a divinely effective revenge on the ex. Even though she says she hates the city, Kate glows throughout the case, presumably confident that her creator has framed the Anchorage background and the familiar issues perfectly. (Mystery Guild alternate selection; author tour)