Amazon.com Review
Aleutian PI Kate Shugak is hiding out in Bering, Alaska. Scarred, scared, and pretending to be someone else, she's trying to find a reason to go on living after the murder of her lover and her own close call with death (
Hunter's Moon). Her self-imposed exile is threatened when Chopper Jim Chopin, a state trooper from her home village in the Bush, arrives in Bering with a new identity of his own. Tagging along are a couple of (barely) undercover FBI agents who think that criminals aboard a Russian fishing vessel docked in Bering's harbor are attempting to smuggle stolen plutonium into the United States to sell to terrorists. But Kate suspects that the Russians are involved in a very different game: laundering money through a local bank. To prove it, she enlists the help of an old college friend who happens to be the bank's chief teller. But getting the evidence costs Alice Chevak dearly; once again, Kate fears, she's brought death to someone she loves.
In this ninth outing for her popular series heroine, Dana Stabenow adds depth, texture, and vulnerability to Kate's inner life; reveals new aspects of Jim Chopin's character; and introduces Alice's daughter Stephanie, with whom Kate forges a bond of love and obligation that promises the youngster an ongoing role in future Kate Shugak's adventures. An expertly paced and plotted thriller with moody, moving undertones, Midnight Come Again will please the author's many fans and likely win her new ones too. --Jane Adams
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Kate's tough life took a tragic turn when her long-time lover, Jack Morgan, was killed in last year's Hunter's Moon. In this ninth entry in the award-winning series, a guilty, inconsolable Kate, impulsively leaving her Alaska bush home for a coastal fishing village, goes to work incognito for Baird Air, a cargo airline. At Baird, she soon runs into Alaska State Trooper Jim Chopin, a friend who's on an undercover job for the FBI. This is only one of several plot-churning coincidences in an otherwise poignant and gripping novel featuring breathtaking descriptions of natural scenery and incisive depiction of Alaskan natives caught between traditional and modern cultures. The FBI thinks that Russian gangsters are using a fishing vessel to smuggle stolen plutonium to right-wing groups, with Baird Air the likely shipper. Two arrogant "Fibbies" get their comeuppance when Jim and Kate uncover a Russian money-laundering scheme aided by a venal Alaska state senator and a crooked banker. The book has an uneven pace, with the slow first half reflecting Kate's grief; as the investigation speeds up, so does the action. In a heart-stopping climax aboard a hijacked airplane, pilot Jim performs aerial stunts to forestall the Russians pushing Kate out the door. Stabenow's evocation of the Kuskokwim delta and its inhabitants is as artful as her portrayal of the Alaskan bush country. And Kate, finally coming to terms with Jack's death, befriends a determined 10-year-old girl whose intelligence and independence mirror her own. Let's hope she reappears in further Shugak adventures. Author tour. (May)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
