Wednesday, October 06, 2021

Ghost Light by Stan Jones & Patricia Watts

 
First Line: Lucy Brophy crashed into Nathan Active as he passed her office on the second floor of the Chukchi Public Safety building.
 
Tommie Leokuk has dementia, and it's not unusual for her to slip the bonds of those who care for her late, late at night to roam the streets of the small Inupiat village of Chukchi in northern Alaska. When she brings something home after one of her rambles, her husband, Oscar, brings her to see Chief of Public Safety Nathan Active. Out of the pouch of her atiqluk, Tommie pulls a human jawbone with one molar still attached. But Tommie can't tell Nathan where she found the jawbone, for- as her husband explains it-- "She lost her brain a few years ago."
 
This leads to some late hours for Nathan, as he watches Tommie to see where she wanders at night. His persistence pays off, and the expertly dismembered remains of a woman are found in the ice cellar of an abandoned Inupiat fish camp. 

As Active struggles with PTSD from a shootout in his last case, he finds himself in the middle of an investigation that grows more complicated by the day.

~

Stan Jones' Nathan Active series has long been my favorite mystery series set in Alaska. Raised by white parents in Anchorage, Active's job with the Alaska Highway Patrol soon leads him to the small Inupiat village of Chukchi on Alaska's north coast where he is now Chief of Public Safety. The backbone of this series is its depiction of village life and how Active slowly becomes a part of it and of his heritage.
 
Now married and with a small child, Nathan finds monitoring Tommie Leokuk's midnight rambles a tough assignment, and I loved the solution one of his men came up with. When you live in a small indigenous village at the end of a very long food chain, you have to think smart because there's just no money available, and these "fixes" that everyone comes up with are just one way Chukchi village life feels so real. 

Nathan's investigation leads him to the oil fields and a phrase that I wish would be erased from our vocabulary within my lifetime ("Boys will be boys") to the streets of Chukchi. The dead woman had two lovers, one male and one female, and Active almost wore a rut in the road being led in circles between the two suspects. This is a mystery where readers know one of two people did it, and they have to wade through all the lies to deduce which one is guilty. 
 
Good-old fashioned armchair sleuthing in a hostile, fascinating environment that's brought to life by a master. If you're a reader, this is one of life's pleasures. If you're new to the series and want to give it a try, start at the beginning (White Sky Black Ice) so you won't miss all-important character development.

Ghost Light by Stan Jones & Patricia Watts
ASIN: B099X5C4N8
Bowhead Press © 2021
eBook, 258 pages
 
Police Procedural, #7 Nathan Active mystery
Rating: B+
Source: Purchased from Amazon.

10 comments:

  1. I was hoping you'd like this one, Cathy. I like the Nathan Active series, too - such a great depiction of life in that part of Alaska, and I like the way his character has grown over time. It's not easy to pull off a co-written book, but it sounds as though it's done well here.

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  2. I need to try this series, and this one sounds so good!

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    1. It is. I enjoy the characters and the stories, but also all the things I've learned about that part of the world.

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  3. This does sound like an interesting series. I like the unique premise of this one in particular - someone with dementia wandering off and finding evidence. Thanks for bringing the series to my attention!

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  4. What a great setting for exactly this kind of plot...sounds really good. And there you go again, introducing me to yet another series I'm going to find hard to resist. BTW, I picked up the first Steps Craig book from the library this morning, and I'm looking forward to working that one into my schedule in the next few weeks.

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    1. Oooh! I hope you like Steps! (And this series is one that I think you'd really enjoy.)

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  5. I am not familiar with this series, but I love the sound of it. Mostly because of that Alaskan setting. :) And yay, my library actually has the first book!

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