Which way now, Huck?

I was delighted with John Straley's Cold Storage Alaska. Even though I got a Lake Wobegon-like story instead of the mystery I expected, Straley got me interested in his characters and kept me entertained.

In the afterward to that book, I learned that there was a prequel of sorts that was published several years before Cold Storage Alaska. I found that prequel at Barnes and Noble and snapped it up. It's called The Big Both Ways.

Annabelle was the matriarch of the community in Cold Storage, Alaska that Straley wrote about. In The Big Both Ways, Annabelle is a young adolescent on the run with her aunt, Ellie Hobbs, who is involved in radical politics, the Wobblies, organized crime, and the cops. After disposing of an inconvenient body, the two of them are joined by Slippery (Slip) Wilson, a logger who quit his job after seeing his best friend die in an awful accident. All three are headed for Alaska, new starts, and ways to make a living.

The book is the story of how this unlikely trio got from the forests of central Washington to a tiny town on the inside passage of southern Alaska. And it's the story of a Seattle cop who kept trying to follow them. (But when he finds them, he only wants to know what really happened. Then he quits his cop job and becomes part of the Cold Storage community, known by Annabelle as Uncle George.)

But this novel is not really a mystery. Somebody wrote that it was a Jack London like story. I don't think so. I think it's an early 20th century, west coast version of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The river isn't the Mississippi, but it's the inside passage. And it doesn't flow south all the time. It flows south and north, depending on the tides ("big both ways").

The adventurers aren't seeking freedom for Jim, but they are seeking freedom for themselves by getting lost in unfamiliar country. They're being chased by George the detective, by some union thugs who are out to capture a traitor, and by some gangsters who want money they believe Ellie Hobbs has made off with.

The little trio row their hearts out in a skiff, catch rides with questionable characters in big boats, evade Canadian customs, fight the tides, get shot at, and poach a farmer's lamb.

Like the story of Huck and Jim, it's difficult to imagine exactly how they survived and made it through the travails of travel. But I was really glad they did. I was cheering for them from the second third of the book.

Once again, I liked the characters and was entertained by their adventures. I certainly hope John Straley writes more stories like these. Mysteries would be okay too, but modeling stories after Garrison Keillor, Mark Twain, or Jack London works pretty well.

Have you read The Big Both Ways? Write and tell this little bit of the world what you thought of it.

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• The author's web site
• Barbara Tom's review in The Oregonian
• Reviews at GoodReads
• John Straley talks about The Big Both Ways

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A familiar book

One of the books I picked up at the community used book sale was The Singing of the Dead by Dana Stabenow. Not only used, it was a paperback. And I bought it on the last day of the sale when everything was "half price."

I might have read this book before. It was published in 2001. I can't go look it up, because our former Internet host finally took down our old web pages where I once posted these little reviews online. (It has been 8 years since we switched.)

I didn't remember any of the plot, scenes, or clever lines when I read it. But it was familiar because I've read so many of Stabenow's books. Familiar characters, familiar settings, familiar culture...

Stabenow tells great stories without superfluous words or events. There really aren't any red herrings either. Freelance detective Kate Shugak gets hired to be security for a political campaign (the candidate had received threats). Along the way, bits and pieces of an unsavory past (some of it 100 years past) pop up. Shugak has to tie the past to the present in order to identify the danger to her client. Oh, and she's also helping a teenage runaway play hide and seek with his angry and abusive mother.

Three stories to tell and they were all interesting to me. This was one of the books that kept me from just sleeping in the hammock over Memorial Day weekend. It was a great weekend and the book helped.

Have you read The Singing of the Dead? If so write and tell this little bit of the world what you thought about it.

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• The author's web site
• Reviews at GoodReads
• A review at Kirkus Reviews

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Lake Wobegon, Alaska

I was feeling a little flush. Probably a budgetary bad way to feel when I'm in a bookstore. It can contribute to deficit spending. So I bought a book.

As big as life on the new mysteries shelf was John Straley's Cold Storage, Alaska. I had good feelings about Straley's earlier books. Goes to show how I'd forgotten the most recent one, The Angels Will Not Care. I've read at least one other, but my written response is buried in the paper files of the old newsletter.

Well, whatever shortcomings I found in The Angels Will Not Care are forgiven.

I started reading Cold Storage, Alaska thinking it was a mystery. It was a reasonable assumption for most of the first half of the book. But about half way through the book, I realized that Straley wasn't writing a mystery, but he was writing a Garrison Keillor-like story of an Alaskan Lake Wobegon (or a seaside version of Cicily, Alaska from Northern Exposure). And he was doing a damn fine job.

Cold Storage is a tiny sea side village that once had a thriving fishing-based economy. Then freezing fish replaced canning fish and the village went into decline. But the story is really about the people who wash up in the backwater of the Alaskan coast. And Straley does a wonderful job of populating the town with natives, returnees, and haphazard immigrants. Like the Norwegian- and German-American residents of Lake Wobegon, the people in small town Alaska are interesting and attractive once you get to know them. And Straley creates characters who are easy to get to know.

Hoonah, Alaska (could be a prosperous version of Cold Storage)

There's Miles, the former army medic who is now the town's physician's assistant (even though there's no physician to assist). Miles' brother, Clive, returns to town with a pile of cash after serving a prison sentence for drug dealing. There is a group of cruise ship refugees who appear just as Clive is rehabbing the old family bar and in need of a house band. Ed and Tina are teachers in the Cold Storage school. Billy is an old fisherman who sets out in a kayak on a fund raising mission to meet the Dali Lama in Seattle and returns with Bonnie, the woman who rescued him when his kayak sank. There's the Alaskan state trooper who is anxious to bust Clive for returning to his old occupation and two of Clive's old criminal buddies who want the money Clive made off with.

If I compare Cold Storage, Alaska with the last of Keillor's novels I read, Pontoon, this is head and shoulders above what the Old Scout turned out.

I learned that this is one of two "Cold Storage" novels Straley has written. Somehow I missed the one about the parents of Miles and Clive, The Big Both Ways. Now, I get to find that book. I don't know if that will be as good as this, but I heartily recommend Cold Storage, Alaska.

Have you read Cold Storage, Alaska?  

Write. Tell this little bit of the world what you thought.

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• The author's web site
• Coleen Mondor's review in The Alaska Dispatch (Anchorage)
• Judith's review in Leeswammes' Blog
• Doug Childres' review in the Richmond Times-Dispatch (Virginia)
• Harry Levins' review in The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri)

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Reading about the past in the present

Sometimes I can't get enough time to read. Other times I can't find enough energy to read. In the weeks leading up to Christmas, I found both the time and energy. Now, I'm trying to find time and energy to write.

I started with a trip to the library and finding a new book by Margaret Coel on the shelf. Many of her books have been interesting and entertaining. Some have been too close to frustrated romance novels. I took a chance and checked out Killing Custer.

A crazy old historical reenactor was channeling "General" Custer and traveling around the west marching in parades, acting in reenactments, and giving speeches in character. When he shows up in Lander, Wyoming for a parade, the local Natives are not pleased. Some of the young men, also riding in the parade plan to insult the Custer character with a "dare ride." Part way through the parade, two lines of Native American riders ride rapidly outside of the Custer riders, circle the group, and ride off ahead of the reenactors. The trouble was that the old crazy guy chanelling Custer was dead after the maneuver.

As might be expected the leaders of the dare ride are blamed for the murder and the local police and the FBI begin looking for them. One of the suspects turns to Father John O'Malley for help and refuge. Father John, in turn puts him in touch with local attorney Vicky Holden.

The set up is almost irresistable. The story is well told. I read it quickly and with excitement. It was a dramatic contrast to the effort I had to put in slogging through The Sirens of Titan. This is one of Coel's better books. Some central Wyoming color, interesting people, perplexing mystery. I liked the book and I liked reading it.

Before I'd even finished Killing Custer, Nancy went to the library and brought back a new mystery by Dana Stabenow, Bad Blood. Stabenow is another writer whose books I've moslty liked. It didn't take much for me to pick it up and get engrossed in the story as soon as I'd finished Killing Custer.

I don't want to pretend this story has any classical aspirations, but Bad Blood is a Romeo-Juliet or West Side Story retelling. It's closer to High School Musical or Shakespeare in Love than to the Shakespeare original. Stabenow's story does have a very bloody ending, though.

Two clans in villages on opposite sides of a small river. One village is prosperous and growing. The other is poor and disappearing. The two clans are rivals and embittered neighbors. There are killings that seem to be the result of feuding. There are young lovers, from opposite sides of the river, trying to escape.

Alaska Trooper Jim Chopin and his lover, the influential Kate Shugak are on the job to investigate the murders, prevent further feuding, and find the young lovers.

What they don't know is that someone is stalking Kate Shugak, seeking revenge for a killing in the distant past.

This story is even more smoothly told than Coel's story. It's easy to read and to enjoy.

SPOILER ALERT: However, when the main character and her faithful wolf/dog in 19 of Stabenow's book catch bullets in the final bloody scene, it's shocking. Almost as shocking was Stabenow's response to an interviewer's question of whether she'd killed off her long time heroine. The author said she'd be crazy to that, but that the last scene would guarantee big sales of the next book. Sales sagging, Dana?

Have you read either of these? Have you read something else that you reacted to? Write and tell this little bit of the world what you thought.

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• Margaret Coel's web page
• Stephen Campbell's inverview with Margaret Coel about Killing Custer (57 minutes)
• Publishers Weekly review of Killing Custer
• More SPOILER ALERT: Dana Stabenow's web site
• Publishers Weekly review of Bad Blood
• Maggie Harding's review of Bad Blood in Book Reporter

Why not dead?

Well, I was reading through a welcome stack of books that I began accumulating in April, and dear Nancy brings home a book from the library. That means I should read it before it is returned unless I want to make the effort to find it later. Not that I minded much. The book was another in the Kate Shugak series by Dana Stabenow. I've liked most of Stabenow's books that I've read.

This one is Though Not Dead.

Right off the bat, I have to give this book two Green Lantern Superhero awards and a Heart of Gold Improbability award.

That bat, that I mentioned above, is about the only thing that wasn't used to hit Stabenow's superhero Kate Shugak in this book. I lost count whether it was 3, 4, or 5 times that Shugak was knocked silly and unconscious during the course of this story. I would suspect that Stabenow has a medical consultant she could consult about the short and long term effects of those injuries, but I really doubt that Shugak could wake up, blink, and carry on as nonchalantly as she does in this story. (Of course, as I recall, Shugak has survived worse in other stories, but in my memories her recoveries have been more realistic.)

Then there's the plot within which all this damage is done. As the book opens, Shugak's self-appointed foster father has died. He was a respected community elder. His gruff, outspoken manner was appreciated by most people. He left a mysterious message for Kate Shugak with his will, and that sets the story in motion.

It's a wonderfully complex story. Only slightly improbable. It's the actions of Kate Shugak and her "enemies" that are improbable. The bits and pieces of the story unwind and then join together in fine ways. Stabenow is a very good story teller. That is what holds this all together in the face of superheroism and incredibly unlikely events.

Like the other Kate Shugak stories, it takes place within the mostly native community on the edge of wilderness in southeast Alaska. The area is about 200 miles southeast of Wasilla in "the park," Stabenow's name for the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. Since the park is so new, there is still a lot of private land and some native communities within the park. (After all, there's still some private land within Glacier National Park, and it's 101 years old.)

Downtown Chitina, Alaska, near the site of Niniltna
(reminds me of Cicely from Northern Exposure
Of course, outside shots for that TV show were filmed in Roslyn, WA)

Niniltna and the native villages are familar communities, full of familiar people to readers of earlier Stabenow books. But, there's a big mining company doing an environmental impact study for a proposed gold mine nearby that brings in a lot of outsiders as well as providing jobs to many locals. Plus, Stabenow allows the community to change, as with the death of Shugak's "father." That kind of vitality is one of the things that makes these stories attractive to me.

Oh, and Kate Shugak's love interest? He's off in California because of the death of his father. And presumably he's coming back to the wilderness richer than Croesus. What will become of two rich adventurous do-gooders in "the park?"

The hard-headedness of superhero Shugak and too many improbabilities keep me from proclaiming this really great. But I liked reading most of it.

Have you read Though Not Dead or other Stabenow books? What did you think of them? Write and tell this little bit of the world.

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• Dana Stabenow's web page for Though Not Dead
• Mary McManman's review at MLive
• Nina Sankovitch's review at Read All Day
• Over 300 ratings at Good Reads

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Alaska frontier mystery

Sometimes I finish reading a book and write about it immediately. Other times, I put the book on the corner of my small desk with the intention of writing about it soon. I don't yet know what determines the course I choose. It might be the book or my reaction to it. It might be the press of other tasks. I was thinking it might have to do with whether or not a book is from a library, but I've gotten overdue notices before writing about a borrowed book.

So Dana Stabenow's Whisper to the Blood has been on the corner of my desk for several weeks now. Since I read it, I've written about several other books.

I really liked this mystery. It's one of Stabenow's Kate Shugak novels. I find the little wilderness community of Niniltna as interesting as Lake Wobegon. I think I like it better than Lake Wobegon because, in spite of the murder and mayhem, the events in Niniltna are less fantastic than most of the events old Garrison Keillor spills out on Saturday afternoons.



Okay, so I like the characters in Niniltna. I like the Aunties who spend their evenings in one corner of the local tavern piecing quilts together. I like the local native elder who spends his time there watching sports on the big screen TV. I like the main character, her teen-age foster son, her wolf-dog, and her lover, the local Alaska Trooper. I like most of the other frontier residents, who have escaped from one thing or another.

How does a tiny, mostly subsistence-based community react to the discovery of gold nearby? There won't be a gold rush, but the big company that has rounded up the mineral rights will be creating more jobs than there are people locally. How do the people react when first the company PR rep is murdered? And then when the most outspoken opponent of the mining is also murdered? And how does the local Trooper along with his unofficial partner in love and investigation find the murderer(s) and protect the community? Oh, and how do Kate and her lover resolve the relationship difficulties they have? (There is a bit of soap opera in this book, but it's better than the bits of romance novel that have been stuck into other novels by Stabenow.)

Stabenow is a very good story teller. Even though she's written 15 other Kate Shugak novels, most of them are set away from Niniltna. So the little frontier village is not the hotbed of murder that some writers seem to create in bucolic settings. (It's hard to imagine, for instance, more than a couple murders a century in a place like Lake Wobegon.)

Stabenow is also very good at creating characters, and after 16 books she's got this crew down pretty well. That's why there has to be some soap opera in the central love story, a budding romance for Kate's foster son, and a new character or two who come to town and end up waiting tables in the tavern or catching on with the mining company's PR project.

Enough, already. I liked this book, Whisper to the Blood. If you've read it, let us know what you think. If you haven't read it, try it out and react here.

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See also:

• Dana Stabenow's web site, where you can read the first four chapters
  
• Mary Helen Becker's review at Mystery Scene

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For Kindle

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Narrow focus. Too bad.

I was getting anxious about reporting on another bit of light reading I'd done. Shouldn't I be reading more substantial books? I even started a non-fiction book (more about that when I've finished).

Then it occurred to me that my serious, substantial, non-fiction reading does not come in books. In fact, most of it isn't even on paper.

Every day, I read headlines in at least 16 online news sources (they really aren't newspapers). And that doesn't take into account the fact that one of those sources provides links to half a dozen Nigerian newspapers' web sites.

I also read entries in at least half a dozen blogs.

And I write about how to teach with one or two of the articles I read in my teaching comparative blog for teachers (and some students) of comparative politics. When necessary, I also write updates to my book, a study guide for students of AP Comparative Government and Politics. I also labor through textbooks when new editions come out.

So, I guess I can read chewing gum "literature" in my spare time. And I shouldn't feel embarrassed.

Therefore, let me introduce Skeleton Lake, A Nik Kane Alaska Mystery by Mike Doogan that I picked up at the Northfield Public Library. [A Skeleton Lake at right]

When I saw "Alaska" on the cover, I probably was thinking of Dana Stabenow, who has done a fine job of writing adventures and mysteries set in Alaska. The bits of sea ice floating in the cover illustration probably made me think of the season just passed. And I really did want to read a new author's work.

Mike Doogan is a newspaper columnist and an Alaskan state legislator. He writes in complete sentences and spells all his words correctly (or at least his editors insist that he does). He tells this Nik Kane story in a complicated way.

Nik Kane, nearly washed-up old detective is coming in and out of consciousness during the first half of the book. He was badly wounded and in his pain-killer facilitated dreams, he sometimes recalls his childhood and other times a vexing 20-year-old murder he never solved. It's an intriguing plot device, and over time, I felt like I got to know Kane a little bit. Not much, mind you, but a little. But I never cared about him. If he'd died on page 50, I wouldn't have missed him and the story could have continued somehow. But he didn't die.

His childhood traumas matter a great deal to the 60-year-old Kane, but I never got to the point of empathizing with his pain and longing. His ruminations on the old homicide never really got me interested.

Then, on page 234 of a 300-page book, I read what Doogan's story should have been about. Describing Kane's family, Doogan writes, "A nun, a volcano about to erupt, a gay guy, a beauty queen, and a lifestyle-a-minute drifter, Kane thought. Does that make me the normal one? God help us all."

This should have been a book about the Kane family. Add Kane, the cop who spent 7 years in prison, his sister who died of breast cancer, and a brother who disappeared into the maw of Vietnam to the crew described above. I almost drool thinking of the stories surrounding those 8 people. Why did Doogan choose to write about Nik Kane? Why not write about the nun? Or the volcano of a brother who, "looked like hell; overweight, unshaven, and in need of a haircut. He was the one who had the most conventional life; a wife, five kids, a big house in the Seattle suburbs, an important job, a deacon in the church... There was something in there fighting to get out and it didn't look like it would be pretty when it emerged."? Or Barry, who was a hotel manager in Bangkok, who "lived with somebody named Kongsangchai who everyone was careful not to ask about."? etc. etc.

Harriet Klausner liked it better than I did. If you read it, let us know what you think. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood.

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• Mike Doogan's web site.
  
• Harriet Klausner's review of Skeleton Lake

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