White Sky, Black Ice [Hardcover]

Stan Jones (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1999

An Alaskan State trooper must satisfy both Eskimo and "white man's" justice.

Trooper Nathan Active, child of a fifteen-year-old unmarried Inupiat Eskimo girl, was given up for adoption and raised in Anchorage, where he graduated from the university. Now that he has been posted to his remote birth village, Chukchi, he longs to return to civilization. Before that happens, he is confronted with atypical suicides. Eskimos are notoriously at risk for self-slaughter, but never has one man after another shot himself in the Adam's apple. Can a shaman's curse really be at work?

Lucy Generous is a beautiful villager who is enlivening Nathan's tour of duty. Nathan's mother tells him to beware; she wants him to find a girl who went to college and has a good job. But with Lucy's help, the nalauqmiiyaak (almost white) state trooper begins to understand his Eskimo heritage, which provides him with the solution to the crimes that he is confronted with.

This is the first in a series of Nathan Active mysteries.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

White sky ("a high film of opalescent cloud... that leached all contour and distinction from the snowy landscape") and black ice ("black and perfect like ice when it was new and thin and deadly") are two aspects of the physical life in the remote Alaskan village of Chukchi, where young and ambitious state trooper Nathan Active is starting his police career. Nathan has decidedly mixed feelings about Chukchi, despite its often stunning beauty. He was born here to a 15-year-old Eskimo girl, who quickly fostered him off to a white family in Anchorage. Also, within its boundaries it contains all the problems facing native Alaskans. Entrapped by poverty and alcohol, too many of them end their lives with suicide. Even an enterprising local leader, Tom Werner, who has fought to ban alcohol and to keep a nearby copper mine open to provide jobs, can't stop two more men from killing themselves in the book's first few pages.

But to Nathan, with his outsider's sensibilities, these last two suicides look suspicious. Even though his politically disgraced superior and the local police warn him off, he stubbornly digs into the circumstances of the deaths and finds connections to the international consortium that owns the Gray Wolf copper mine.

Nathan is a fascinating character, bristling with anger against his birth mother for abandoning him, but still drawn to her and the native life. His feelings about a determined young woman called Lucy Generous are equally ambivalent: part of him loves her sexual frankness, while the other part warns him that a native wife might not help his career.

Stan Jones, an environmentalist, journalist, and bush pilot, obviously knows and loves the people and territory he writes so well about in this, his first mystery. --Dick Adler

From Publishers Weekly

The hero of Jones's promising first novel is Nathan Active, an Alaska state trooper. He is an Inupiat, but was given away by his mother when he was a baby, and raised by a white couple in Anchorage. Now he knows little of his background, and feels torn between two worlds. Nathan's bafflement hasn't been helped by his work assignment in Chukchi, the town in the rural northwestern corner of Alaska where he was born and where his birth mother still lives. The Inupiat townsfolk there have welcomed the opening of the Gray Wolf copper mine, as it provides jobs for young people. The number of wife-beatings and liquor-related offenses has declined dramatically. But now two local men have died in the same week, each of a gunshot wound in the throat. Locals assume that the deaths were suicides, especially as one of the young men belonged to a family whose members are subject to a curse. Nathan is not convincedAeven in suicide-prone Chukchi, men don't usually shoot themselves in the Adam's apple. While this tough, gritty mystery generates only modest suspense, its exotic setting will hold readers throughout. Jones has a real knack for depicting the daily life of a small Inupiat community, and the toll that alcoholism has taken on it.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Soho Press,Inc; First Edition edition (May 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1569471525
• ISBN-13: 978-1569471524
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,644,350 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An authentic picture of police work in rural Alaska, October 30, 1999

By 

James H. Chenoweth ([e-mail]) (Hancock, NH) - See all my reviews

This review is from: White Sky, Black Ice (Hardcover)

This book is a flawless gem! Born in a native village but raised in a big city, a young Alaskan State Trooper is posted to the town where he was born. He is faced with solving a puzzling series of suicides while trying to balance himself between two cultures. It's a corking good mystery and placed in a genuine Alaskan setting.

I was a Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal in Alaska during its final territorial and early statehood years. What impressed me most about this book was its absolute authenticity. The natives, the way they live, their unique speech patterns, the land they live in, and the climate they endure are all true to life. Just as realistic are the problems facing a police officer in the rural areas of Alaska.

WHITE SKY, BLACK ICE turned back the clock for me and I felt right at home, page after page. Read it. You'll learn more about the real Alaska from this book than from any guided tour!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tony Hillerman on a snowmobile, May 2, 2005

By 

E. A. Lovitt "starmoth" (Gladwin, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: White Sky, Black Ice (Hardcover)

I don't know if I've ever read a romantic novel about Eskimos. The land is savage and so are the stories. Two Eskimo men commit suicide at the beginning of "White Sky, Black Ice" and no-one seems to question the coincidence except for 'Dudley Do-Right' Alaska State Trooper Nathan Active.

Nathan Active, an Inupiat Eskimo himself, is actually called 'Dudley Do-Right' by yet another man who is about to commit suicide. This comes much later in the book. Initially Nathan is suspicious of the suicides because both men appeared to have shot themselves in their Adam's Apple. Both of the dead men also had jobs at the Gray Wolf Copper Mine, run by a Norwegian conglomerate called GeoNord.

Aha! You say. Evil Big Business ruins pristine Alaskan wilderness and destroys anyone who gets in its way.

Well, no, not quite. "White Sky, Black Ice" is much more complex than that. There are also many subplots, one involving a shaman's curse on an Inupiat family who had already lost two sons by suicide. When the third son seemingly kills himself, everyone shrugs and says, "It was Billy Karl's curse." As Nathan Active puts it, "Despair blew through Chukchi's streets like the west wind. He wondered if he could endure it long enough to get his transfer to Anchorage."

Active himself was given up for adoption by an unmarried Inupiat girl, and was raised by white parents in Anchorage. He certainly had no plans to return to Chukchi where his birth mother lives. Yet here he is, and all of the old Inupiat 'Aanas' plot to find a bride for the 'nalauqmiiyaaq' (almost white man) State Trooper, including his birth mother.

Nathan slowly sifts through the clues offered up by alcoholic Inupiats, and little old 'Aanas' who blackmail him into giving them rides to the bingo game with his Explorer's flasher on.

Author Stan Jones was born in Anchorage, and has worked as an award-winning journalist there for most of his career. He is also a bush pilot, and readers will be imbibing lots of authentic detail about Alaskans, both native and white, and about the Alaskan wilderness, along with the bones of this well-plotted mystery.

In fact, one of the characters is a rather likeable bush pilot, who we come across while trying to fix a tear in the fabric of his plane with a roll of duct tape. Unfortunately, it's too damn cold for the duct tape to stick. He takes Nathan up anyway. It's the code of the bush pilots not to get too excited about a little tear in the tail flap.

This mystery is definitely not a cozy. It is edgy, boozy, and sad. The author's style and preferred setting remind me of Peter Bowen more than than Tony Hillerman. I will definitely be looking for the sequel to "White Sky, Black Ice."

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An accurate portrayal of Alaskan native life, February 2, 2000

By 

Nancy Werner (Michigan, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: White Sky, Black Ice (Hardcover)

I am a certifiable 'Alaskaphile!' I love all things Alaskan. To me, the fact that the book was a mystery was an added bonus. I read it for the Alaskan setting.

What I enjoyed about Stan Jones' novel was the authenticity of the native culture in 20th century Alaska and believability and likeability of the characters. It is apparent that Mr. Jones is a student of human nature because he has used his powers of observation in crafting characters that literally leap off the page and sit down on the sofa next to you. There was nothing stereotypical of the portrayal of native Alaskan characters, situations or customs.

It is apparent that Mr. Jones has a deep knowledge of life in a small bush town. He also interjects a panoply of uniquely Alaskan ingredients....the autonomy of the native corporation and men behind it...the wide array of people who live in a bush town...alcoholism...suicide...alternative means of transportation...law enforcement in the bush.

Mr. Jones weaves the characters together in a gentle, flowing way. His story-telling is masterful. But the greatest asset of White Sky, Black Ice is Mr. Jones depiction of individuals regardless of heritage in an honoring way. For that reason, I couldn't put it down because I cared about the characters and wanted to see the outcome.

It's a great book!