THE SINGING OF THE DEAD

Her friends (surprising in number considering her antisocial tendencies) are treating Kate Shugak like fragile goods—but, as her 11th adventure demonstrates, she’s stamped “Expedite Delivery (or Else).” Back in Niniltna, still grieving over Jack Morgan, Kate (Midnight Come Again, 2000, etc.) takes on new responsibilities. First, there’s Jack’s son Johnny, who has hitchhiked to Alaska. Kate stashes him with Ethan Int-Hout, her sort-of stepbrother and first crush. Then there’s Anne Gordaoff, a Native American running for state senate against the incumbent, Alaskan aristocrat Peter Heiman. When Anne receives threatening notes, her win-at-all-costs campaign manager, Darlene Shelikof, hires Kate to guard her. While Kate tries to decide what she dislikes more—Darlene or the campaign trail—someone performs coitus interruptus with a pistol on Anne’s future son-in-law, Jeff Hosford. Hosford not only called Kate “a cute little thing” but also hid connections to Heiman. Then another threatening note arrives, narrowing the field of suspects to the Gordaoff inner circle. Kate rousts them, to find staff researcher Paula Pawlowski murdered. Materials used for the notes are found at Paula’s house, but Kate remembers Paula ‘s excitement at discovering, while she was researching both candidates’ family histories, the murder of a prostitute during the Klondike Gold Rush. The incident, though great material for Paula’s novel (and Stabenow’s), could well prove deadly knowledge 85 years later.

Apart for one misstep, Kate foils the note-writer and the murderer without much effort. Her relationships, however, remain as unresolved as the prostitute’s ancient murder.