MURDER IN A COLD CLIMATE

Riverting introduction to Royal Canadian Mounted Police Inspector Matthew ""Matteesie"" Kitologitak, an Inuit, whose special assignment--to find a missing plane piloted by a politician's son--is interrupted when his own flight sets down in Fort Norman: before Matty can react, an assassin steps forward and shoots politician and stroke-victim Morton Cavendish (en route to an Edmonton clinic) to death, then flees on a handily parked snowmobile. Are the missing son and the shooting related? Matty, with the help of No Legs, a trapper, and schoolteacher Edie, owner of the best dog-sled team available, tracks Cavendish's son William over the winter road (i.e., the frozen lakes), past the caribou trail to a camouflaged plane--and the frozen remains of Christian and Batten, drag-selling compatriots of William; then on the the downed pilot (who's got a broken leg and is guarded by William's lead sled-dog, Smokey). After a run-in with bartender/assassin Billy Bob and a bring-whoever's-left-alive back to civilization romp across the permafrost, there'll be a conclusion to the drug-ring-ordained murder Matty witnessed--and an answer to where that lost plane got to. Fascinating tidbits about the frozen North, including why old-timers favor dog teams to snowmobiles (""If I run out of grub I can't skin and eat a snowmobile""); the ethnocentricities of the Inuit, the Dene and the M‚tis; the 24-hour night; and Inuit love life (Matty's is complicated). Wry, unique hero; taut writing. Don't miss it.