Better to Rest (Liam Campbell Mysteries, Book 4) [Hardcover]

Dana Stabenow (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 3, 2002

"Alaska's finest mystery writer" (Anchorage Daily News) has given readers a hero to cheer for. Alaska state trooper Sergeant Liam Campbell is the representative of law and order in the fishing village of Newenham-yet struggles to keep his own life on an even keel. Now, just when his future is starting to heat up, he delves into a case of a downed WWII army plane found mysteriously frozen in a glacier.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Like a spectral presence, a hand clutching a gold piece emerges from the ice of a calving glacier near the small town where Alaska state trooper Liam Campbell is investigating the brutal murder of a 74-year-old woman. The hand belonged to an army soldier killed with his crewmates in the crash of the World War II army plane entombed by the glacier a half century ago. Although it takes several long and occasionally tedious pages before Campbell and pilot Wy Chouinard make the connection between Lydia Tompkins's murder, the source of her family's mysterious wealth, and the secret mission that led to the crash of the old C-47, fans of this series won't mind. A skillful chronicler of Alaska's extraordinary landscape and its eccentric inhabitants, Dana Stabenow does a competent job with a plot that lacks much drama or suspense; what little there is comes from Liam and Wy's on-again, off-again romance. --Jane Adams

From Publishers Weekly

Sgt. Liam Campbell's fourth outing (following 2000's Nothing Gold Can Stay) finds the Alaska state trooper exploring an old plane crash and a new murder in a story marked by Edgar winner Stabenow's superb depictions of the Alaskan landscape and its willful inhabitants. The discovery of a WWII-era American army plane embedded in the face of a glacier raises a surprising number of questions. And the murder of a feisty, elderly matriarch leads to some surprising revelations about her active life. Having through a misstep in his career landed in the small fishing town of Newenham on the eastern edge of Bristol Bay, Campbell now has a chance to return to Anchorage, but he's not sure he wants to. For one thing, there's his unresolved relationship with pilot Wyanet "Wy" Chouinard, typical of the many intriguingly complex relationships with which the author has filled the plot. The bonds of love, blood ties and friendships play out in convincing and satisfying fashion. Stabenow also laces her story with Alaskan history, from the development spurred by WWII, including the upgrade of the Alaska Railroad and construction of the Alcan Highway, to the halcyon days and more recent decline of the fishing industries. Passionate about his work and perhaps more clear-headed about his professional life than his personal life, Campbell makes an engaging hero, one who bids fair to become as popular as Kate Shugak, the heroine of Stabenow's other, long-running series.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: NAL Hardcover (September 3, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451207025
• ISBN-13: 978-0451207029
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #390,562 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dana Stabenow was born in Anchorage and raised on 75-foot fish tender in the Gulf of Alaska.  She knew there was a warmer, drier job out there somewhere and found it in writing. 

Her first science fiction novel, Second Star, sank without a trace (but has since been resurrected as an e-book), her first crime fiction novel, A Cold Day for Murder, won an Edgar award, her first thriller, Blindfold Game, hit the New York Times bestseller list, and her twenty-eighth novel and nineteenth Kate Shugak novel, Restless in the Grave, comes out February 14, 2012.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Better to rest, October 28, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Better to Rest (Liam Campbell Mysteries, Book 4) (Hardcover)

This is a good story, but, there is much in the story that emulates soap opera plotting. The ending seems rushed with the "aha" veiled in a rapid realization of the perp's identity. It would be best read in series since there is so much of the subplot that carries over from previous stories. Not having read the series will not hamper the reading but the reader is likely to feel ill at ease over not knowing the "inside" remarks. The author does a fine telling of Alaska land, climate and socio-economic problems. These elements are under-written but part of the fabric of the story's main plot. (And, the plot is quite interesting as well as thoroughly unique.) The relationships among the people are perhaps entirely within the social norms of the writer's experience. They are somewhat alien to my experience and seem extreme as to both alcohol usage and the sexual undercurrents. I believe that any new reader will wish to read the previous books in this series to flesh out this story. I await the next book in the series to see if it meets the level of the earlier books.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Better Than I Expected!, December 16, 2004

By 

Wendy Kaplan (Houston) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Better To Rest (Liam Campbell Mysteries) (Paperback)

I am such a huge fan of Dana Stabenow's "Kate Shugak" series that I really wasn't much interested in starting another Stabenow series, I guess out of loyalty or something. But I picked up this book while waiting for somebody, and couldn't put it down.

Alaska trooper Liam Campbell is just wonderful, very much like the regulars in the Shugak series. And in fact, there is a very sly reference to Kate herself--not by name, but by inference ("I know somebody who carries a hand-carved otter in her pocket")--that just thrilled me!

Campbell's sweetie, Wy the pilot, is a typical Stabenow female: no-nonsense, tough, competent, and deeply in love with her man without wanting to reveal just how much.

The plot was a bit thin...a glacier melts enough to expose the remains of a World War II plane and its occupants...and a myserious gold coin. The discover may or may not be related to two terrible murders in town. It's a confusing plot, but as always, the Alaska lore of which Stabenow is a master far outweighs the story itself.

I plan to read all of the Liam Campbell books now, and just am happy that Stabenow is so darned prolific!

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Look what I found in the glacier, Ma!, December 27, 2002

By 

TundraVision (o/~ from the Land of Sky Blue Waters o/~) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Better to Rest (Liam Campbell Mysteries, Book 4) (Hardcover)

Dana Stabenow's Liam Campbell is on the case of the mysterious glacial crash of a WWII Lend-Lease cargo plane and current-day foul play. Is there a connection?

The Stabenow oeuvre (Campbell and Kate Shugak ) serves up fun geological, geographical, environmental and historical morsels and moving verbal snapshots of Alaska along with ice-cracklin' good "Whodunnits." At times, this one tilted too much toward Harlequin bodice-buster for my tastes. And, Hello? Is anyone listening? "Doing the box thing" (Campbell's diagramming of people and interrelationships involved in a case) would be much more effective if, like Ed McBain's 87th Precinct books, the author and publisher actually visually (not just a verbal description) SHOW the reader the document to which they refer.

I prefer Shugak's saga over Campbell's chronicles- so far Kate has more substance and less bodice-busting - but both series are good for cozy winter nights in front of a warm fire. They are best read in order to follow the escapades of this interesting, entertaining, and quirky bunch of inhabitants of the Land of the Midnight Sun. Reviewed by TundraVision