Customer Reviews

Fire and Ice: A Liam Campbell Mystery (Liam Campbell Mysteries)

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Like many other reviewers and fans of Kate Shugak, I was a bit reluctant to read the Liam Campbell series. It couldn't be as good. Well, I was wrong. It may even be better.

I suspect that Stabenow was simply getting bored with Kate and wanted to write something a little different. Well, in Liam she's created a great format to tell us about that unusual species, the Alaskan Male. (Hey, they even have - or had - magazine about the phenomenon.) A healthy chunk of this book is about the war between the sexes, Alaskan style. Sure, the mystery takes a back seat but the humorous observations more than made up for it.

As for the mystery, Liam is literally landing at the airport when the first suspicious death occurs. By the time the mystery is resolved, the reader has met a cast of eccentric characters that somehow ring entirely true, learned A LOT about herring roe fishing, and gotten under the skin of a macho man dealing with his world seemingly falling apart. There's plenty of crime in Newenham, much of it falling into the boozed up small town variety (shooting the jukebox and the post office) but something deeper and uglier is going on. There's an amazing amount of money at stake in the herring season. Could that be the cause? Or is it just small town romance gone wrong?

Bottom-line: A genuinely enjoyable read even if Stabenow digresses from the mystery plot at times. Liam Campbell is a nice mix of too good to be true and 1990's angst inside. I'll be reading the next book in the series soon.

I hesitated to read "Fire and Ice," because I am such a fan of Kate Shugak's that I knew it would have to be a disappointment. Boy, was I mistaken! Kate's rough edge has been replaced by humorous eccentricity from the people Liam meets, but the same fast-paced plot and love of Alaska make this book a wonderful read in its own right. I laughed out loud in spots, and I hated to finish it--it was that good. There's no need to debate "better then" or "less than" Stanbanow's other series. This is a very good read, and I can hardly wait for the next one in this new series.

Liam Cooper had it all. He loved his job as a sergeant with the Alaska State Troopers, was happily married and had a child, who he adored. However, his personal collapsed when a DUI killed his wife and son, and his career fell apart not long after that. He becomes an alcoholic in a failed attempt to stop the pain.

However, Liam gets an opportunity to start anew when he is assigned to serve as the state trooper at the fishing city of Newenham. When his plane lands, Liam is greeted with his first case: the beheaded corpse of Bob DeCreft lying on the tarmac as a nearby propeller whirls. With Bob's years of experience and his impeccable safety record, Liam wonders if foul play has occurred. Making matters more difficult for Liam is seeing for the first time in years the first woman he ever loved (and lost), Wy Chouinard, a pilot and peer of the deceased.

FIRE AND ICE is a remarkable regional police procedural that makes the reader believe that they are traveling over the rural areas of Alaska. The story line is crisp and action-packed as Liam literally take his first step from the plane into a murder mystery that impacts the woman he still deeply loves. The characters are well drawn and likable, but fans of the Kate Shugak series already expect that from talented Dana Stabenow. Readers will want more works starring Trooper Campbell and his superb support cast in their remote, often time feral locale.

Harriet Klausner

Did not care for this book, page 48 and already a pornographic sex descripition. I will not read the reminder of this book, the main Character is a idiot. Not well written if you like Romance novels this is the Book for you. Loved the Kate Shugak series.

I've read most of Stabenow's Kate Shugak novels, but never had any desire to read any of her other series, at least not until I got to know Jim Chopin. I like him, so I thought maybe I would like Liam Campbell as well. The big problem - Liam is basically Kate, in drag. He thinks like her, he speaks like her, and he solves his mystery the same way she would have. He even has the same way with people that she has, and the same relationship problems in his personal life. I would have liked this novel if I had never read any of Stabenow's books before, but Liam doesn't stack up next to Kate. I had the uneasy feeling as I was reading that all of this was faintly familiar, only a little skewed. Since Stabenow hasn't written a Liam novel after ' Better To Rest' in 2002, I'm assuming she came to the same conclusion. I'll stick to Kate from now on.

Stabenow just keeps getting better and better. Like some of the other reviewers, I thought I was going to miss Kate Sugak but it didn't happen. Liam Campbell is my new favorite character. With her trademark humor, Stabenow weaves another good mystery. I'm looking forward to more stories with trooper Campbell and other colorful characters Ms. Stabenow invents.

When I buy a mystery book, that's what I want. I don't mind a hint of romance but the best mystery writers only give you a hint. You can't get very far in this book before you realize that everyone is more concerned about their libido than anything else, and the author is very graphic. Either write a mystery novel or a romance novel; those of us who truly enjoy mystery novels would greatly appreciate it.

I liked this book a lot. The mystery was good, the descriptions of Alaska evocative, and the characters lively. I prefer Liam to Kate Shugak, who I've always found to be a bit uptight.

I have loved the Kate Shugak mysteries, but this new series is spectacular. Liam Campbell is a character you want to know ALL about; and Wy is todays woman. I eagerly look forward to their unfolding adventures. Just don't forget about Kate. Your following for her is well esablished. -A faithful reader in Warrensburgh, NY.

"If it looks like a motive, if it acts like means, if it quacks like opportunity..." That ducky paraphrase is one of the good things about this mystery, Dana Stabenow's first in the "Liam Campbell" series. This time, it's as if Alice's Queen of Hearts ("Off with their heads!") is loosed upon an airport in Southwest Alaska. Beware the prop blades!

The Stabenow oeuvre (Campbell and Kate Shugak, who will subsequently team up in "Midnight Come Again" ) offers 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 "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 have not read all the series, nor read them in order, but I'm going to give it a go. The inhabitants are an interesting, entertaining, quirky bunch with whom I look forward to getting better acquainted.