Customer Reviews

Nothing Gold Can Stay

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

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

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.

This was my first Dana Stebenow book and I really enjoyed the story line of this novel but I wish I had bought the book instead of listening to it on cassette. The readers voice is, at first, like nails on a chalkboard and I almost stopped listening before I got started. I'm honestly not sure if it got better or I just got used to it. I also found it annoying that the book jacket information was read at the beginning of the tape instead of at the end and that the title and authors name was repeated (along with a few lines of the story) at the beginning of each side of every tape. On the last tape it sounded like the reader was very tired or trying to stretch out the words to fit the tape. While I highly recommend this book I absolutely do not recommend buying the book on tape.

I have just finished reading this book and I am left with a feeling...I want another Liam Campbell book to read NOW. This book was fantastic. Dana Stabenow is hitting her stride; her last three books have been such great reading. I highly recommend both the Liam Campbell and the Kate S. series.

This review refers to the Kindle edition of the book - not sure if the printed version was any different / less sloppy?!!

I downloaded the first 3 books in this series and read them back-to-back in a matter of days and things jumped out at me from this book that apparently the author and the editors missed.... like how Liam shrank 1" in this book - if you're going to make a big deal about how tall your lead guy is, you need to make him a consistent height - how old Charlie was when he died, it was 18 months in the first 2 books but in this book he was 6 months old. Then there was an entire conversation at Wy's place, involving Wy, during the time she was at the fish camp and so not present. Prince flew off from the murder scene, but was mysteriously there having breakfast and then arrived again.

Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy and kind of spoiled the whole book for me. Wondering if the author was actually paying any attention when writing this book or what. Now wondering if i should bother with the 4th. :( Too bad because I am enjoying reading about the Alaska side of things.

This is the third story in the Liam Campbell series by Stabenow.

If you like the Kate Shugak stories you will also like this series. I admit that I jumped in at the third story here but I am now going back to get the rest.

Liam is forced to solve a serial murder case though at first no one is sure that it is a serial case. It seems with different weapons and the distances apart that they are not connected. But, as the story progresses you see how they are connected and how eventually things come together. As usual Stabenow also makes the characters very real as well as the difference in the remote parts of Alaska and family values. She describes the setting as well as the lifestyles fantastically.

Another winner by Stabenow.

Dana Stabenow's wild, unforgiving Alaskan landscape almost takes a backseat to the riveting serial murder plot in the Edgar Award-winning writer's third Trooper Liam Campbell outing. Campbell is getting his life back together in the remote village of Newenham, breaking in his ambitious new subordinate Diana Prince and cementing his precarious relationship with bush pilot Wyanet Chouinard and her adopted son, when murder shatters the peace.

First it's the postmistress of an isolated outpost, then a gold prospector, his wife gone missing. But when a third body turns up on Wyanet's route, Campbell has to suspect a serial rampage. The narrative moves between Campbell's point of view and that of the murderer and his victims, keeping the reader a few steps ahead of the cop, establishing a pattern that Campbell must crack before more people die.

Plenty of suspense keeps the pace lively and numerous subplots concerning Wy's son's abusive birthmother, the beaten teenaged wife of a local politician, out-of-town visitors, and the hunting, trapping and drinking activities of the native population supply pathos and humor, hope, despair and a richly detailed background. Stabenow keeps getting better.

This is the third outing for Liam Campbell, Alaska state trooper exiled to Newenham in the Bush when civilians were killed on his watch. He is continues to make the best of a bad situation. As summer ends, there is a rash of killings seemingly unrelated - too far apart, weapons not the same, etc. But, then again, maybe it is the same killer and if it is, Liam's got a serial killer loose in the Bush. Stabenow takes us through each step of the investigation and while she's at it transports us to the Alaskan Bush. This is a well written plot with intelligent, believable characters, a well-plotted mystery, and a satisfying ending. Only a handful of writer write as well as or better than Stabenow!

The novel is the third in a series, and you need to read the previous two novels in order to understand the relationships between the characters. Like other novels by this author, it has a strange title. It is set in Alaska at the end of the 20th century. A bad slump in the fishing industry aggravates conditions caused by harsh weather, dark winters, and isolation. There is alcoholism and related domestic violence. Men beat their wives and parents abuse their children. A large number of people sleep around. The Alaska Bush has also become home to a variety of people ranging from eccentrics to a dangerous psycho.

It is September and Wy is flying mail to isolated settlements and preparing to bring out summer people before bad weather. She dicovers a rural postmistress shot to death behind her counter. Events are compounded by the discovery of a murdered miner, his wife missing, and later a murdered recluse. Trooper Liam Campbell is a bit too quick to throw people into jail on flimsy evidence, and does not seem overly concerned about their rights (there is no such thing as ballistics for a shotgun - thousands of guns will produce the same shot pattern).

References are made to other women missing in the past, and the case gradually winds forward to a conclusion. As in the previous novel, there is collateral damage. It does not pay to be on the premises when Liam is working on a case. The plot becomes fairly transparent, and the guilty party is known to the readers long before he is known to Liam. At times the story drags a bit when it goes off into side issues.

The novel has sexual content, language, and some violence. Parental guidance is suggested for younger readers.