Nothing Gold Can Stay: A Liam Campbell Mystery (Liam Campbell Mysteries) [Hardcover]

Dana Stabenow (Author)

Book Description

Series: Liam Campbell Mysteries | Publication Date: September 21, 2000

From Edgar award-winning author Dana Stabenow comes the third book in her acclaimed Liam Campbell series-a suspenseful, atmospheric novel of murder, elusive justice, and a terrifying truth that stretches back nearly twenty years

A few years after losing his wife and young son in a tragic accident, Alaska state trooper Liam Campbell has finally begun to make a new life in Newenham, a remote fishing village of proud, independent natives where the currents of loyalty, fear, and violence run deep. Campbell's latest investigation into a seemingly routine homicide-a robbery gone bad-becomes something else when the first murder is followed by a second ...then a third. Soon a chilling pattern begins to emerge-a twisting path that leads him back through the years and into the sights of a diabolical killer whose hidden agenda could have fatal consequences for Campbell and those he loves.

A novel as fresh and exhilarating as the landscape that is the setting for her popular series, Nothing Gold Can Stay is Dana Stabenow at her very best.

"Dana Stabenow is rapidly emerging as one of the strongest voices in crime fiction."-Seattle Times

"Skilled, inventive. Campbell is a delightful character. Please, Ms. Stabenow, give us more."-Washington Times

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Alaska is home to Dana Stabenow's two series protagonists, Kate Shugak and Liam Campbell, as well as to the author herself, who excels at contrasting the vast emptiness of the bush with the close relationships and tangled kinship connections of the Native American and white characters who people her lively thrillers. Nothing Gold Can Stay brings state trooper Liam Campbell back as lead investigator in a string of killings that stretch back through time, along with his colleague Diana Prince, an ambitious young policewoman who's excited about her first assignment after the academy. It also fleshes out Liam's complicated emotional life. Slowly rebuilding his career in the remote fishing village of Newenham after a deadly mishap in which five people were killed (and a devastating personal tragedy that claimed the lives of his wife and young son), he's now happily involved with bush pilot Wy Chouinard. Wy is the adoptive mother of a teenage boy badly abused by the birth mother who's suddenly returned to claim him. Campbell, for his part, finds himself caught up in the seemingly unconnected deaths of a postmistress and a prospector and the search for the latter's wife, who disappeared from the scene of her husband's murder.

Stabenow is a talented plotter, who keeps the action going as Liam and Diana close in on the deranged serial killer. She makes the most of her minor characters, especially a charismatic tribal elder who's a martial arts expert, a battered teenage wife, a sexy, 60-ish barkeep, and an unhappy yuppie who'd rather be hunting for bargains at the Anchorage Nordstrom than for gold in the wilds of the bush. Stabenow depicts the unforgiving wilderness of Alaska with the love of a native daughter and the skill of a writer who keeps getting better with every book. --Jane Adams

From Publishers Weekly

In Stabenow's third Alaska State Trooper Liam Campbell mystery (following 1998's Fire and Ice), the physical descriptions of Alaska are awesome: Stabenow places you right in this lonely, breathtaking country. But a novel needs more than scenery and here the scenery, so beautifully evoked that it serves as another character, can't move the story along by itself. When Liam's lover, pilot Wy Chouinard, discovers the murdered Opal Nunapitchuk while delivering mail at lonely Kagati Lake, she calls Campbell and his assistant, Diane Prince. At first it seems a random assault; then a woman disappears after her husband is killed at their gold mining claim. When the troopers connect the crimes with a 20-year-old string of missing women, they know they're following a previously undetected serial killer. Meanwhile, Wy's adopted teenage son, Tim, is again in danger from his alcoholic birth mother. Wy hastens him to Moses Alakuyak's fish camp at Old Man Creek, where Moses and his girlfriend, Bill, take care of the boy. When Peter Cole, whose cabin is another stop on Wy's mail run, is found dead, she plots the track of the present crimes and realizes the madman is headed for Old Man Creek. Edgar-winner Stabenow is an accomplished writer whose books, including the Kate Shugak and the Star Svensdotter series, are always entertaining. But in this one the sense of place overwhelms everything else, although that may be what Alaska is all about. (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 275 pages
• Publisher: Dutton Adult (September 21, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0525945598
• ISBN-13: 978-0525945598
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #737,100 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

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Page Turner!, October 3, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Nothing Gold Can Stay: A Liam Campbell Mystery (Liam Campbell Mysteries) (Hardcover)

While delivering the mail to small outposts in Alaska, pilot Wyanet Chouinard discovers the body of a postmistress. Wy's lover, Trooper Liam Campbell, has to investigate the murder and also support Wy through a personal crisis involving Wy's adopted son's birth mother and a court order that the woman has allowing her to see her son. Friends of Wy and Liam take the boy to stay at their remote fish camp along with a young girl who has been the victim of domestic violence. Meanwhile, a gold miner has also been murdered and his wife is missing. Liam searches for the wife in connection with the two murders, but the reader knows that the woman has been abducted by the real killer. Yet another body is found and the potential for violence escalates as a winter storm comes on and the kidnapped woman escapes her captor and heads for help in the same area where the fish camp is located. Wy realizes her son may be in peril because the trail of bodies is leading closer to the fish camp. She and Liam (who hates to fly) take off in the storm. The story reaches a dramatic climax at the cabin at the fish camp as several story lines converge. Stabenow makes the reader care about all the characters and especially the victims of the killer.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another winning mystery by Stabenow, October 6, 2000

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Nothing Gold Can Stay: A Liam Campbell Mystery (Liam Campbell Mysteries) (Hardcover)

At one time, law enforcement official Liam Campbell felt he had it all. He loved and was loved by his wife and son, and enjoyed his work even as he seemed on his way to the top. However, his world collapsed with the deaths of his spouse and child, which led to his failure as a cop. Exiled to remote Newenham, the Alaska State Trooper begins to recover his life, especially with his hot and cold relationship with local Wyanet Chouinard. Everything is quiet on the northern frontier.

However, the calm ends when someone murders the postmistress of a nearby village in an apparent robbery that turned ugly. Other homicides follow along with several disappearances. Liam, ably helped by his assistant Diana Prince, begins to investigate a crime spree that seems linked to events over two decades old.

With the Kate Shugak and Liam Campbell novels, Dana Stabenow owns the Alaskan mystery. The current tale, the third Campbell story (see SO SURE OF DEATH and FIRE AND ICE) is a fabulous regional novel that brings the final American frontier to vivid life. The story line is exciting, has a touch of love in the air, but never loses sight of its prime theme, the police procedural investigation in a remote area. Liam is a tremendous star still struggling but clearly improving to regain his equilibrium. The support cast adds the touch of genuineness and reality to the locale, the lead character, and the mystery.

Harriet Klausner

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Nothing Gold Can Stay: A Liam Campbell Mystery, July 23, 2001

By 

Sourdough (Marietta, Georgia USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Nothing Gold Can Stay: A Liam Campbell Mystery (Liam Campbell Mysteries) (Hardcover)

A disappointment. Having read the previous two Liam Campbell mysteries, I was quite excited when this latest edition arrived. I soon discovered, however, it was not up to the quality of Dana Stabenow's other work. Although the book has its moments when a decent plot surfaces, overall the book is a monotonous collection of trite sub-plots punctuated with silly ramblings and descriptions about the sexual exploits of the books lessor characters. It is unfortunate Ms. Stabenow's writing style has to take these measures to fill the pages of this short book. The plot idea was excellent and could have been developed into a first-rate story. Dana Stabenow has repeatedly proved she can write a great story. This book is not one of them.