Fire and Ice: A Liam Campbell Mystery (Liam Campbell Mysteries) (Paperback)

by Dana Stabenow (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Dana Stabenow won an Edgar Award for her books about Kate Shugak, a resourceful Indian woman living in Alaska. The series is full of respect for the landscape and the hard work it takes to survive in the far north. Now she starts a new series starring Liam Campbell, an Alaskan State Trooper with a troubled past and an uncertain future; the environmental issues of the 1980s appear to have been back-burnered in favor of the personal needs and feelings of the 1990s.

You might think there are one too many colorful eccentrics or jaunty drunks in the town of Newenham, where former Sergeant Campbell has been demoted after his own bout with booze and self-doubt. But you'll definitely admire the way Stabenow jumpstarts her story: within a few minutes of his arrival from Anchorage, Campbell has to deal with one murder (a pilot almost decapitated by his propeller), one old girlfriend (the exotic and possibly dangerous Wy Chouinard), and a man held hostage in the town's only decent burger joint--held for shooting out a jukebox that was playing Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville.

Stabenow can also grab your attention with the details of everyday life in an Alaskan fishing village, such as this description of the contents of a light plane: "There was a handful of candy wrappers, two maps of Bristol Bay, five small green glass balls which Liam recognized as Japanese fishing floats, a walrus tusk broken off near the root, a survival kit, two firestarter logs, two parkas, two pairs of boots, a litre-sized plastic Pepsi bottle half full of yellow liquid, a clam gun, a bucket, three mismatched gloves and three handheld radios, which to Liam seemed a bit redundant." The Kate Shugak books include A Cold Day for Murder, Breakup, A Cold-Blooded Business, Blood Will Tell, Dead in the Water, A Fatal Thaw, Killing Grounds, and Play with Fire. --Dick Adler --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
Stabenow, author of the Edgar-winning Kate Shugak series (Killing Grounds, 1998), masterfully traces the twisting life of Alaska State Trooper Liam Campbell in this series debut. Campbell steps off a plane in the town of Newenham, his new posting, leaving behind him in Anchorage a tattered career, a dead son and a wife in a coma. His first moments in town bring him into close contact with pilot Wy Chouinard, the woman he really loves, and the headless corpse of her flying partner, Bob DeCreft, who was decapitated by the propeller of Wy's plane. Meanwhile at the local watering hole someone has taken offense at Jimmy Buffet's singing and shot out the jukebox. Now the music critic is being held hostage by an enraged barkeep. The proliferation of grizzled macho thugs, sexy loner women and acts of nasty violence might makes readers' heads spin, but Stabenow weaves it all into a compelling tale with an assured hand. The young woman who lived in the dead man's house is attacked by the loutish owner of a fishing boat. It was he who hired Wy to spot fish from the plane that was sabotaged the first time to take Bob's life and is damaged again in an attempt to intimidate Wy. Liam's troubled past is only a precursor to the turmoil he faces in southwest Alaska. Happily, this much mayhem has rarely been in surer literary hands.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Signet (September 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451197704
• ISBN-13: 978-0451197702
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #508,247 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

• This is item 1 in The Liam Campbell Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Murder entree with a romance side and herring dessert, June 6, 2001

By	Carol Peterson Hennekens (Colorado Springs, CO United States) - See all my reviews

Like many other reviewers and fans of Kate Shugak, I was a bit reluctant to read the Liam Campbell series. It couldn't be as good. Well, I was wrong. It may even be better.

I suspect that Stabenow was simply getting bored with Kate and wanted to write something a little different. Well, in Liam she's created a great format to tell us about that unusual species, the Alaskan Male. (Hey, they even have - or had - magazine about the phenomenon.) A healthy chunk of this book is about the war between the sexes, Alaskan style. Sure, the mystery takes a back seat but the humorous observations more than made up for it.

As for the mystery, Liam is literally landing at the airport when the first suspicious death occurs. By the time the mystery is resolved, the reader has met a cast of eccentric characters that somehow ring entirely true, learned A LOT about herring roe fishing, and gotten under the skin of a macho man dealing with his world seemingly falling apart. There's plenty of crime in Newenham, much of it falling into the boozed up small town variety (shooting the jukebox and the post office) but something deeper and uglier is going on. There's an amazing amount of money at stake in the herring season. Could that be the cause? Or is it just small town romance gone wrong?

Bottom-line: A genuinely enjoyable read even if Stabenow digresses from the mystery plot at times. Liam Campbell is a nice mix of too good to be true and 1990's angst inside. I'll be reading the next book in the series soon.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A new series for Stabenow-it is wonderful, August 21, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Fire and Ice: A Liam Campbell Mystery (Liam Campbell Mysteries) (Hardcover)

Liam Cooper had it all. He loved his job as a sergeant with the Alaska State Troopers, was happily married and had a child, who he adored. However, his personal collapsed when a DUI killed his wife and son, and his career fell apart not long after that. He becomes an alcoholic in a failed attempt to stop the pain.

However, Liam gets an opportunity to start anew when he is assigned to serve as the state trooper at the fishing city of Newenham. When his plane lands, Liam is greeted with his first case: the beheaded corpse of Bob DeCreft lying on the tarmac as a nearby propeller whirls. With Bob's years of experience and his impeccable safety record, Liam wonders if foul play has occurred. Making matters more difficult for Liam is seeing for the first time in years the first woman he ever loved (and lost), Wy Chouinard, a pilot and peer of the deceased.

FIRE AND ICE is a remarkable regional police procedural that makes the reader believe that they are traveling over the rural areas of Alaska. The story line is crisp and action-packed as Liam literally take his first step from the plane into a murder mystery that impacts the woman he still deeply loves. The characters are well drawn and likable, but fans of the Kate Shugak series already expect that from talented Dana Stabenow. Readers will want more works starring Trooper Campbell and his superb support cast in their remote, often time feral locale.

Harriet Klausner

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Humor And Mystery, August 14, 1999

By	N. Sausser "pucksau" (California) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Stabenow just keeps getting better and better. Like some of the other reviewers, I thought I was going to miss Kate Sugak but it didn't happen. Liam Campbell is my new favorite character. With her trademark humor, Stabenow weaves another good mystery. I'm looking forward to more stories with trooper Campbell and other colorful characters Ms. Stabenow invents.