Customer Reviews

Village of the Ghost Bears: A Nathan Active Mystery

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I look forward intensely, with any mystery by Stan Jones, to simply soaking up the atmosphere in this remote Arctic corner of Alaska.

Here the buildings stand on pilings to avoid being swallowed by melting permafrost. Polar bears have their own heaven somewhere out on the ice. A father might reincarnate as a husky to watch over his daughter. Spirits in dreams can inspire murder. And the reader starts feeling half Inupiat (Eskimo) a quarter into the book.

Alaska State Trooper Nathan Active is the brains behind any investigation in the town of Chuckchi. He's part Inupiat, part white, and would rather be in the civilized city of Anchorage. But he's stuck for the moment in backward Chuckchi, his current post. Despite the handicap of some white blood, Nathan is amazingly resourceful in the wild. He's also attractive to women. Only his girlfriend can resist him.

The crime facing Nathan and his fellow troopers in this book is the burning down of the local Rec Center. Eight people died, and it looks like arson. The motive eludes everyone, as the investigation takes bewildering turns through jealous rivalries and illegal activities (like selling bear gallbladders to the Russians and Koreans).

Stan Jones spent some time as a bush pilot, and he can always be relied upon to give us a harrowing ride or two in small planes through frightening conditions.

With Nathan Active, Jones has created a likeable, thoughtful, mild-mannered hero who shoots only when necessary - but can turn into a fearless daredevil on a manhunt. Although notoriously manly, Nathan is not above consulting an Inupiat healer for advice on his love life. I'd recommend reading every novel in this series, in order if you can.

Inupiaq Alaskan state trooper Nathan Active is camping with his beloved Grace when they find a corpse in a creek. The pike had eaten away the face of the deceased.

Soon afterward someone sets a fire to the recreation center in the remote village of Chukchi. Eight people including the police chief die in the deadly inferno.

Nathan investigates both cases of homicide. At the same time, apparent polar bear poaching, an illegal act as the animal is protected by law, makes his inquiry much more dangerous and convoluted especially the body in the brook inquiry.

The latest Nathan Active police procedural (see Frozen Sun) is a terrific Alaskan thriller that hooks the reader early with its stark beautiful description of remote Alaska mostly from an aerial view. Nathan is his super self working exciting twisting investigations into homicides and poaching that look like Bridges to Nowhere except for his diligence, and his romance enhances the plot as he turns to a native healer for advice. However, Alaska owns this super tale as Stan Jones provides a deep look at a remote part of the state.

Harriet Klausner

I like the main character here, Alaskan State Trooper Nathan Active, and I like the setting, a small village/city on the outskirts of the northern tundra. What I didn't particularly like was the storytelling itself. There was some real missed opportunities to keep the reader guessing in classic whodunit mode. In the hands of a more experienced, better writer, this book would have taut with tension. But instead of keeping the reader guessing at the most crucial moments, he wraps things up way too conveniently, making the fatal mistake of telling rather than showing.

Really interesting, especially since I live in Yup'ik territory and am familiar with the Chukchi Sea area. It helps to read them in order.

This happened to be the first of the Stan Jones/Nathan Action series I've read, and it seems to me to give away quite a bit about what has happened in the previous books, though obviously I could be wrong. Otherwise it offers an interesting depiction of a (to me) unfamiliar locale and people, and well paced action. (One character's behavior at the end of the novel really seems quite unbelievable to me--perhaps related to a subsequent plot development.) I won't say it's that it's difficult to anticipate what happens, but it was entertaining reading.

If you've never traveled to Alaska, you'll feel you've been there anyway once you pick up the Stan Jones habit, as I have.

Jones, Anchorage-born and -bred, is the author of four mystery stories featuring Alaska State Trooper Nathan Active. The two I've read -- his first (White Sky, Black Ice, and his fourth, Village of the Ghost Bears) -- are both set in the predominantly Eskimo village of Chukchi on the Northwest Coast, far from the vast state's best-known towns, Anchorage, Juneau, and Fairbanks, in the East. Keep in mind that Alaska is roughly three times the size of Texas, and you'll understand why Nathan Active spends so much time in small airplanes.

Active was born to an unmarried sixteen-year-old Eskimo woman -- or, in the local language, Inupiat ("IN-you-pat") -- but raised in Anchorage by Caucasian parents. In the series' first novel, he found himself stationed where he least wanted to be, back in Chukchi, where his birth-mother lived. Now, in the fourth novel and still in Chukchi, he is trying to talk his girlfriend and her daughter to move with him to Anchorage when his transfer finally comes through. The unexpected strikes, though, and Active is soon caught up in investigating a tragic fire that has killed a number of the villagers, including the local police chief.

Dashing from one village to another, and from one hunter's camp to the next, mostly with his bush-pilot friend, known only as Cowboy, Active finds himself progressively more confused as the threads of one investigation intersect with the other. The story unfolds quickly, with tension building nearly to the last, but with one last surprise in the closing pages.

Village of the Ghost Bears is a thoroughly satisfying mystery story, but it stands out more for its stark snowbound setting, its depiction of Eskimo culture, and the author's obviously deep love for the land, than for its excellence as an example of genre fiction. Read it for either reason. You'll enjoy it.

(From [...])

Alaskan State Trooper Nathan Active is camping with Grace, the love of his life, when they discover a body floating face-down in One Way Lake. It looks like an accident; but, when the body is eventually identified as a Korean man just released from prison, police thoughts begin to turn to murder. But those thoughts quickly are diverted to the Rec Center fire in Chukchi, the village where Nathan is posted. The fire kills eight people, including a local basketball hero and the chief of the local Chukchi police. And it seems to be arson. Was it revenge against Jim Silver, the dead police chief? Random murder by a psychopath? Something else?

Both the Troopers and the local police are on the case. They are cooperating rather than competing, and a good thing for the case too, since Nathan is competent and the local cop, Alan Long, isn't. There are few clues, but a couple of potential suspects are identified and the hunt goes from Anchorage to Barrow as well as into the bush country (which is soon to close down as winter is beginning), complete with hair-raising flights with bush pilots, the discovery of another possible murder, recovery of a dead dog's head, the capture of a crazy guy who takes directions from a dream ghost and many other wonders.

Active realizes that there is some connection between the body he found and the arson and settles down to work out what it is. Eventually he sets out to question (and perhaps arrest) the possible evil-doer, a feat that ends up being only part of the battle.

This is a great series and this installment is no exception. Nathan seems more comfortable with his birth mother and his Inupiat heritage generally, but he's still looking to transfer to Anchorage. His only worry is whether Grace, who is both very tough and incredibly fragile, will agree to come when he finally is transferred. The glimpses that the book affords into the wild beauty of Alaska and into its equally wild local culture are great. Entertaining and well worth reading.

I enjoyed the book and read it in one day. The book gives the reader a good insight of Alaska and the mystery is excellent. I am the authors first timne reader and I am going to read his past books.

Alaskan Trooper Nathan Active is assigned to the trooper station in remote Chukchi Alaska in NW Alaska. In Village of the Ghost Bears, Nathan has to find the arsonist who murdered 8 people including the Chukchi chief of police, Jim Silver. As he criss crosses his corner of the state tracking down leads, we are introduced to the very unique culture of the largest state in the USA.

Looking at the mystery only, some of the coincidences may be a little obvious (it was easy to predict the identity of the corpse that Nathan and Grace found at One Way lake) but that's a nit-pick that occurred to me after I finished the book, it truely didn't matter to me as I was reading. I was completely engrossed in my reading, pausing only to consult my atlas or look up online articles on polar bears, Inupiat eskimos, Korean folk medicine, game & fishing laws in Alaska & tons of things like that.

This book is a good mystery and a great way to learn about Alaska.

"Village of the Ghost Bears" is the fourth mystery in the Alaskan trooper, Nathan Active series, following "White Sky, Black Ice," "Shaman Pass," and "Frozen Sun: A Nathan Active Mystery (The Nathan Active Mysteries)."

Although much of the action in this series takes place in the Arctic fishing village of Chukchi, the wilderness is only a step outside the door, crackling underfoot like new sea ice. It permeates the lives of everyone in this book, from bush pilots to bingo-playing aana (grandmothers). The people of Chukchi are hunter-gatherers, thinly disguised with Carhartt jeans and Sorel boots, Sudoku puzzles and iPods. When one of them sets fire to the village recreation center, eight people die, including the police chief, and Nathan Active is once again on the hunt for the wiliest, most dangerous predator of all.

Many interesting subplots support the hunt for the arsonist. Nathan Active's love life is played at a lower key than in "Frozen Sun." (Thank goodness. Sometimes I wish detective-heroes would follow Sherlock Holmes' example and remain celibate).

The illegal trade in polar bear gallbladders permeates the story.

Death comes in many guises: burning; freezing; with the smile of a clown; within the jaws of a bear.

Bush pilots almost take over the story with their hair-raising exploits (the author is a bush pilot, himself and I can't help but wonder how many of these stunts he's describing from experience.)

In pursuit of his arsonist, Trooper Active must visit tiny Cape Goodwin, which is rapidly crumbling into the sea. It is known for its twins, polar bears, and schizophrenia--all of which play a part in this story.

I've read all of the books in this series, and have finally resorted to buying them as soon as they are in print. "Village of the Ghost Bears" was worth every penny of its purchase price. Here is Alaska, red in tooth and claw with a minimum of preening politicians and prosing travel agents. Stan Jones is the Tony Hillerman of this barren, arctic, beautiful land.