Blizzards, tundra, Eskimos, bush pilots, and bingo-loving grandmas enliven this literate ethnic mystery starring Alaska State Trooper Nathan Active, who has been assigned to the remote Arctic town of Chukchi. Though born an Inupiat Eskimo, Active was raised in Anchorage by white parents and has little knowledge of his native culture. During the long months he has spent in Chukchi, he has rallied against the icy weather and struggled to understand his two cultural identities, but he realizes how deeply he has been settling into the rhythms of community life when Grace Palmer, a local beauty queen, goes missing. The state trooper mounts a search that ultimately leads him halfway across Alaska—and gives him plenty of time to discover he is in love with Grace. Closing in on the answers, however, he discovers evidence that points to an agonizing situation: she is either dead, or she is a cold-blooded killer.
Book Description
Frequently Bought Together
Editorial Reviews
Review
"Readers of Dana Stabenow and Mike Doogan will appreciate Jones's take on Alaskan justice. Recommended for all collections." —Library Journal
"That rare thing, a deftly plotted mystery that's also an irresistible love story. With it, Jones's Alaska series (Shaman Pass, 2003, etc.) takes a quantum leap forward." —Kirkus Reviews
"Jones doesn't pretend to find anything remotely character-building in the conditions of those who have survived the unforgiving climate of the Arctic only to disappear on the streets." —The New York Times Book Review
About the Author
Stan Jones is an award-winning newspaper and public radio journalist and the author of Shaman Pass and White Sky, Black Ice. He lives in Anchorage, Alaska.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Couldn't put it down!,
By
This review is from: Frozen Sun: A Nathan Active Mystery (The Nathan Active Mysteries) (Paperback)
This was my first book by Stan Jones, but I WILL find the others! I was reading even as they were taking me down to the holding room to prep me for hernia surgery. I hate and despise to be cold (I'm from Mississippi), but reading about the intense cold didn't stop me. I'm looking forward with great anticipation to reading those of his that I've missed, and wish I didn't have to wait for the one on the burner! Go ye, therefore, and READ!
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Atmospheric with an unusual setting,
By
This review is from: Frozen Sun: A Nathan Active Mystery (The Nathan Active Mysteries) (Paperback)
This atmospheric mystery skillfully exploits its unusual Alaskan setting. Its backdrop is the plight of some of the native people as well as those of mixed heritage, such as the protagonist Nathan Active.
Active works for the Alaskan police and is posted in the remote settlement of Chukchi. The book begins when the high school principal asks him to track down his daughter, a former beauty queen who ran off several years before. The trail leads Active to the squalid stip joints of Achorage and a miserable, fish factory in the rain-drenched Aleutian Islands. Active is entranced by the beautiful woman he is chasing, and unwilling to abandon the investigation even when it appears she's dead. At the same time, he pursues a half-hearted affair with a sexy young woman back home, to whom he offers great sex but no emotional commitment. Soon we're involved in an Alaskan version of "Chinatown", the famous Polanski movie. Jones offers a fairly broad cast of well-drawn characters and an easy familiarity with Inupiat culture. The plot of this book generates little suspense so it's not exactly a page-turner, but the setting and characters are so interesting and unusual that it kept me reading avidly to the end. [...]
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A disappointment,
By dgstone (Western US) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Frozen Sun: A Nathan Active Mystery (The Nathan Active Mysteries) (Paperback)
I'm always looking for new mystery series, and the stellar reviews for Jones' books were encouraging. But I won't be reading any more Nathan Active books. The plot was thin, the author kept telegraphing the next revelation (what's the point of a mystery if there's no suspense?), the characters weren't believable, the dialogue less so, and there are annoying stylistic tics.
Surprisingly, there isn't much sense of place, which is a shame since Alaska's an interesting state. I've been to Dutch Harbor in the Aleutians, where some of the book takes place, and it's a good thing, because I wouldn't have been able to picture it from the author's description (it rains, it's cold....). Likewise the town Chukchi, where Nathan lives, isn't any more vivid (it's snowy, it's cold). Also, I would have expected there to be more tension in Nathan's character itself: an Inupiat raised by whites, there should be internal struggle that, while alluded to, doesn't come through. Clearly I'm in the minority here, but this book is mediocre.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
