Customer Reviews

A Taint in the Blood (Kate Shugak Mysteries)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The latest Kate Shugak mystery begins on a humorous note, as an overzealous Kate, eager to repay her friends for favors performed in 2003's A Grave Denied, becomes an annoyance to everyone she knows. Thus, her friends breathe a sigh of relief when she becomes preoccupied with a new client, Charlotte Bannister Muravieff. A member of a wealthy Alaskan family, Muravieff wants Kate to gather evidence to help clear her mother, Victoria, who was imprisoned for the murder of her son William some thirty years prior. Unable to turn down the large fee the woman offers, Kate begins her investigation of what she quickly realizes is no ordinary cold case.

Fourteen installments in, Stabenow's Kate Shugak series remains fresh and engaging. Shugak is an impressive leading lady, an aggressive, capable, tough as nails heroine who somehow also manages to endear herself to most everyone she encounters. Stabenow has also created an impressive supporting cast for Kate to interact with, from her sage uncle Old Sam, to her lovable dog Mutt, to her romantic conquest, the increasingly enamored lawman Jim Chopin. All bring out different sides of Stabenow's multifaceted protagonist, as well as providing frequent comic relief.

It's a winning mix, one that's only enhanced by the intriguing mysteries Stabenow has concocted for Kate over the years. If you haven't experienced the charms of this series as yet, A Taint in the Blood is as good a place as any to start.

Don't believe any of the carping or nit-picking by reviewers who were put off by the "graphic sex scenes," which were a delight in fact. What a romp the whole book was, so much so that I sat up late to-night to finish it, well past my usual bed-time. It was great fun and for the sex, that was just funnier than heck. Be assured that any reader who doesn't think so is either a prude or inhibited or lacks a sense of humor, since at the end of every last one of these scenes I was not left aroused but laughing ... and if you want to know why, then give yourself the pleasure of reading the whole thing - full of the expected quirky characters and convoluted plot that kept me guessing almost to the end as well as the strong "sense of place," not to mention giving the reader a strong sense of Alaska - its history, environment, people, traditions ... warts and all!

As a long-time fan of Dana Stabenow and her heroine, Kate Shugak, I was happy to go along on another adventure. Stabenow has added a lighter touch, opening with some snapshots of Kate's excessive helpfulness. And it was fun to follow Kate around Anchorage, which the author knows well. Alaska is magnificent in summer and the author captures the feeling well.

The plot isn't bad. A wealthy woman pays Kate a huge (unspecified) sum of money to get her mother out of jail after 30 years. The mother needs medical treatment and the daughter is afraid she'll die in prison. Kate investigates systematically, calling in favors from all over, and soon realizes several parts of the story are unexplained.

There are a few odd steps in her detection, such as her decision to have dinner with an influential wealthy suspect. The solution seems plausible but not obvious and the cover-up and the explanation seems a little more tangled than it might be. The obligatory climax with real physical danger seems a little forced but easy to read and enjoyable to follow.

However, I have to agree with other reviewers. Stabenow gives us too many steamy (or pseudo-steamy) sex scenes, where she moves to the viewpoint of Chopper Jim. Some of his reactions seem more appropriate to an inexperienced teenager, not a middle-aged ladies' man. We can already guess that Kate would be fantastic as a sex partner because she's so athletic and in touch with her body. We don't need the details, down to her underwear. Given that Kate is a dignified woman who commands more respect than liking, I feel that we're invading her privacy.

And because the tale has been set in Anchorage, we don't get to revisit Johnny and the Park rats. That's understandable: in any series, the author has to move us away so we won't get bored with the same old scenes.

Finally, I lived in Alaska in 1989-1991. Every year Alaska gets more and more like "Outside," so I can see where Stabenow has to stretch to give us a sense of place. But I hope she does. Kate's home must be very different than when the series started. I'd like to learn more.

I have read all the Kate Shugak series as well as the other mysteries Dana Stabenow authored. I have enjoyed the Alaskan wilderness, how Kate lived in her one-room cottage during the winter without electricity and plumbing, and all the local small-town characters; as well as the fascinating plots and settings: on a fishing boat, at a glacier, dealing with 'break-up' and drunkeness and family abuse in the Alaskan wilderness in the winter. I especially thought her scene of Kate's keening at the death of her lover, Jack, in an earlier novel was powerfully drawn, and so was the quality of their relationship leading up to that scene. Kate's relationship to Jack's ingenuous son, Johnny, is always compelling.

Three or so of the usually brilliant and sensitive Stabenow's books back I was taken aback in one novel at the sudden offering of badly-written sex scenes: in-your-face, unsubtle, prolific and lacking in eroticism; they occurred throughout the book; so much that I have repressed the title and even the plot or whether it was a Shugak or other Stabenow series book (although I think it was not a Kate book).

In general A Taint in the Blood was worth the read, because it was a continuation of a story I was familiar with, but was not compelling in several ways: At the beginning the writing is erratic in quality (it evens out soon). The introduction comes off as unlike what one would expect in a Kate Shugak novel, using glib statements in a list to describe Kate's reaction (irrational guilt expressed in a patronizing need to help everyone who helped her) to the new house her neighbors and friends built and paid for for her. I felt someone besides the usual author had written it and I almost put it down or sent it back.

In this book the Kate I was familiar with has metamorphosed into someone who is part her and part somebody else: a cavalier, immature caricature of a movie type we are overly familiar with: the old-fashioned bimbo. The bad-sex scenes are plentiful here and Kate is the one who performs them; there are three places in which she 'runs her tongue across her lower lip' or flutters her eyelashes, and she acts overtly seductive to try to get information from a suspect (which doesn't work anyway). She is trying to 'get' her man, Jim, throughout the book by using sex, sex, sex and there is virtually no talking between them about the relationship. He, for his part, is terrified of getting close to anyone and we have no clues to why; or to why this method of Kate's, getting him in the sack and then acting as if she doesn't care if she sees him again, is going to work. (And, by the way, what happens when they get there? That might have been interesting, but I don't recommend that this author try it; otherwise, why do they keep going back to 'it'.) The man, Jim, here, is a relative cypher. The idea that a woman can get her man by using his own (love 'em and leave 'em) tactics lacks 'gravitas'. I have forgotten what drew Kate to Jim Chopin in the first place in previous books and the author doesn't remind us in this one. When Jim resists and finally decides to stop the relationship entirely we have no clue to Kate's feelings about this though she seems to have gotten in pretty deep emotionally. Her consistent confidence that he will give in and that she doesn't need to protect her own vulnerability at all is unbelievable.

I have seen series authors succumb to thinking they can 'write it in my sleep', give it over to a ghostwriter or just lose their way due to going through a hard time that year -- it usually is obvious. As well, sometimes writers think readers don't grow along with them and continue to try to fit a larger, well-padded foot into the same pat shoe; they demean their readers thus because their writing becomes talking down to them/us (a certain imagined age group/demographic?)and is of necessity inauthentic.

I not only missed the usual characters, Kate's adopted son
Johnny (who shows up briefly at the start), but Aunti Vi, Sam Dementieff (sp?), Bobby and his family and the rest, as well as the backdrop of the locale of Niniltna -- the novel is set in the big city, sophisticated, corrupt old-moneyed family circles of Anchorage this time -- but I was left having not really gone anywhere, learned much of anything new or gotten out of myself and experienced someone else's reality. I certainly didn't want to go where Kate was going in this one.-- Kate seems to be another person altogether. She has lost her 'nativeness', her groundedness and her authentic core, virtually everything that drew me to her in the first place.
There is a cavalierness that pervades this book, includng sometimes in Kate's relationship to her half-dog/half-wolf best-friend, Mutt. The one place I found myself hoping to hear of again after they were introduced in this book and was not disappointed was an incidental meeting of two runaway young brothers whom Kate befriends and helps. (Funnily enough Jim has no connection to these boys, though he is a cop, and it is this kind of lapse that makes me wonder what she sees in him.)

I liked reading about what Kate serves the brothers for breakfast and what she cooks for herself. I also liked learning in detail about how someone in the Bush buys foodstuffs and other necessities in large quantities for the winter and 'palettes' them for shipment on a cargo plane to a middle-warehouse which will save them in Niniltna for her return. Thinking about it now, I guess the Anchorage upper-class shallow, corrupt characters are so much in evidence in the randomly-chosen movie one finds on television that it made me long for Niniltna, the reason I read these books of Stabenow's.

But, too much, throughout, cavalierness supplants heart.

Basically, the sex scenes are lacking and distracting --
I miss 'my' character, Kate, who evidences none of the depth of maturity and sensitivity she had gained from her deep and real experiences of love and loss in previous books. And, though the author has worked hard on the place of Anchorage and the plot there is some of her past spark missing. Hey, I miss this author!

A flash (fire) from the past is the heart of the newest Kate Shugak murder mystery. As ever, Alaskan author Dana Stabenow expertly weaves the place and its politics into the tale. Kate goes South to Anchorage to investigate a 31 year cold case of arson/murder, angering one of Alaska's most powerful families. Longtime readers of this series will miss Kate's friends and family back in The Park ("twenty million acres, almost four times the size of Denali National Park but with less than one percent of the tourists,") but this foray into the bright lights of the big city shows that you can take the girl out of The Park, but you can't take The Park out of the girl. The romance between Kate and State Trooper Jim Chopin heats up in this episode. It's a little too steamy for my blood. /TundaVision, Amazon Reviewer

Harlequin Romance? I have them all over the place. The other half reads them and so do I when out of other books. Hey it's printed right? Kate and Jim isn't even near that genre. From everyone crying and whining about Kate I assumed Stabenow suddenly got hit on the head on the way in from the oil field and took off with some strange writing style. She didn't.

It was well done. It worked in nicely. Put me in mind of a relationship I once had and I can understand why it was there. It worked with the developing relationship of Kate and Jim. It also worked with their personalities. I wouldn't have been expecting them to hold hands over the ice flow and blush at each other. They are too red blooded full of life people for that.

Why not the five star? Because by the end of the book I wanted to knock some of the side characters on the head and dump em into a river never to be found. They were more annoying than anything and not because of plot. They were just annoying.

So if your idea of great sex is holding hands over the ice flow.. yeah you might be shocked. Some of us go for more than that. Now excuse me, I am going to go get in trouble with my other half because of "You have that grin on your face again..." Memories

Kate Shugak is the woman I want to be. Dana Stabenow is the writer I want to be. Set in Anchorage instead of out in the bush, Kate Shugak tackles a thirty year old murder case. When the daughter of the convicted killer approaches Kate, she is at first skeptical, but decides to take the case. In Anchorage she starts digging for answers, uncovers three decades of buried secrets behind the murder conviction. Chopper Jim Chopin follows Kate to Anchorage. Ms. Stabenow notches up the heat between Kate and Chopper Jim in this story which I thoroughly enjoyed. As usual Ms. Stabenow has penned another winning book in the Kate Shugak series.

I never met a Kate Shugak novel I didn't like, and A Taint in the Blood is no exception, even though I have to admit that I found the plot a bit convoluted and got confused more than once about who was doing what to whom and why.

No matter. This outing finds Kate in Anchorage, where she has been called upon to solve a 30-year-old murder that took place in a patrician Alaskan family with many politically important connections all the way to the top. Charlotte Muravieff writes Kate a check she cannot refuse, and tells her to clear her mother Victoria, in jail all these years for supposedly setting the fire that killed one son and permanently injured another. Kate is sure that Victoria did in fact set the fire, but reluctantly agrees to take on the case.

While in Anchorage, Kate's nosing around leads to all kinds of strange and scary happenings, including murder, that would scare off the average PI, but just make Kate more anxious to get to the bottom of the mystery. And while she's at it, she turns up the flames under her torrid romance with Chopper Jim the Gorgeous Trooper. Warning to the faint-hearted: Stabenow is quite bawdy and bold with her descriptions in this book, so if that is not your cup of tea, better skip this one. I thought it added a great deal of amusement and romantic intrigue to the story!

Mutt is back as her superhero self, and there are enough local characters to fit the bill, as we have come to expect in any Shugak novel. I'm not going to say I even understand how the mystery ended, but I loved the book anyway. A good, fun, fast and satisfying read.

Kate is one of my favorite characters; she's tough, independent, funny and, with her sights set on Chopper Jim, very sexy. Excellent dialogue, suspense and wonderful secondary characters are a hallmark of this series. Anytime I open one of Stabenow's books, I know I'm going to have a great read, and this certainly was no exception. This is a wonderful book in a great series.

One problem with Dana is that SHE DOESN'T WRITE FAST ENOUGH!

Another excellent book from Dana. Several years ago I was savoring Hunter's Moon when I found myself almost mourning Jack's death. I thought that my love affair with Kate's series was at an end. After a couple of "okay" books, A Taint in the Blood brought me fully back into the camp!