The Bone Seeker by M.J. McGrath

First Line: That Friday afternoon in late July was the last time Edie Kiglatuk saw Martha Salliaq alive.

Teaching summer school in the Canadian Arctic, Edie Kiglatuk is shocked when her favorite student, Martha Salliaq, is found dead in nearby Lake Turngaluk. Edie promises the Inuit girl's family that she will uncover the truth and enlists the aid of Sergeant Derek Palliser of the Ellesmere Island Native Police. While they begin their investigation, lawyer Sonia Gutierrez is working hard to overcome obstacles concerning the cleanup of Lake Turngaluk, but she's beginning to think that there is a larger conspiracy involved. What the three of them don't realize is that, while they're unearthing long-buried secrets, they're also putting their lives at risk.

 

M.J. McGrath's Edie Kiglatuk series ended at three books, but as far as I'm concerned it could have continued for much, much longer. The three books (White Heat and The Boy in the Snow are the first two) not only have absorbing mysteries to solve, they also give readers a vivid, fascinating picture of life in the Arctic Circle and of the Inuit culture. (Please do not call them "Eskimos" because that word means lice in another language.)

It's summer in the Arctic, and one of the things McGrath has her characters show us is how people deal (or don't) with twenty-four-hour-a-day sunlight. Camp Nanook is a summer military encampment not far from the village where Edie is teaching, and I was shocked to learn that "...thirty per cent of Arctic postings returned to the south with some kind of mental disorder." Scary stuff, right? The mystery is a good brain teaser for armchair sleuths since it involves the history of the Distant Early Warning line formed by Canada and the U.S. during the Cold War. Not only are there Inuits involved in Martha Salliaq's murder, but readers also have to navigate suspicious governmental goings-on.

The investigation is hampered, as always, by the government consistently giving the Inuit the short end of the stick. Edie and Sergeant Palliser have to wait days to receive extra help such as the most basic forensics equipment, and all the while, officers in nearby Camp Nanook are working in the shadows to find out what Edie and Palliser know-- and how to prevent them from learning anything more. 

The Bone Seeker benefits from an exceptionally strong cast of characters. Derek Palliser, derisively called "Lemming Police" by the locals, finds himself upping his game in light of Edie's passion for the truth even though he's hampered by insomnia. Edie's hunting skills translate well into a homicide investigation, and well, she's just a force of nature. "Only set of rules I know is mine...And I don't have any." A welcome addition to the cast is the lawyer Sonia Gutierrez from Guatemala. She has her own shadowy past, and after working for years on a lawsuit to force the government to clean up this area of Ellesmere Island, scarcely anything gets past her razor-sharp intellect and unflinching gaze. Whatever you do, don't mess with Edie and Sonia!

There's more than meets the eye to the title of this book, and when you come to that part (as I hope you will), you may find a chill running down your spine and a tear in your eye. The Bone Seeker works well as a standalone, but if you love mysteries with strong unconventional characters and learning about other cultures, I highly recommend that you read all three books in order. Then you will join me in wishing Edie Kiglatuk would appear to solve another mystery up at the Arctic Circle.

The Bone Seeker by M.J. McGrath

ISBN: 9780143127475

Penguin Books © 2014

Paperback, 368 pages

 

Amateur Sleuth, #3 Edie Kiglatuk mystery

Rating: A

Source: Purchased from Book Outlet.

White Heat by M.J. McGrath

First Line: As she set a chip of iceberg on the stove for tea, Edie Kiglatuk mulled over why it was that the hunting expedition she was leading had been so spectacularly unsuccessful.

Half Inuit Edie Kiglatuk is a part-time teacher at the local school and also guides hunters out into the  Canadian Arctic that she knows so well. She's working hard to help her stepson Joe Inukpuk pay for his nurse's training. When one of the hunters she's guiding is shot and killed, her carefully balanced life begins to teeter. The Council wants to call it an accident, but Edie and police sergeant Derek Palliser are suspicious. Then the other hunter goes out into the tundra again and disappears. Regardless what the Council says, Edie is determined to find out what's really going on.

White Heat is one of the best evocations of place that I have read in a long, long time. I'm fortunate that I decided to read the book in the summer; otherwise, I might have gotten frostbite. McGrath paints a fascinating portrait of the Inuit people high up in the Canadian Arctic: what the typical village is like, the typical home, transportation, medicine, education, Inuit customs and history, and more. All this information blends seamlessly into the story. Some of the information is disturbing, some of it makes good appetite suppressants (I'll never visit the area to sample its cuisine), and all of it is fascinating.

Add in an intriguing mystery that has everything to do with the landscape, a remote chapter of its history, and bad guys whose motives are unclear, and you've got two-thirds of an excellent mystery.

The final third is the cast, and McGrath has created two very memorable characters in Sergeant Derek Palliser and Edie Kiglatuk. Palliser falls in love with the wrong women and spends a lot of time studying lemmings instead of doing police work, but that doesn't necessarily have a lot to do with how well he does his paying job. This man has depth.

What Edie Kiglatuk has goes way beyond mere depth. This woman is an ex-polar bear hunter-- one of the best in the entire area before she began drinking too much. To be a polar bear hunter, you have to be smart, you have to be able to think and react quickly, you have to know your terrain, and you have to be brave. Edie is all of these. She's also an excellent teacher, and I loved the scenes showing how she manages to teach her class of Inuit children how to survive in their own world as well as the world of the white man. If Edie has a flaw, it's her emotional entanglements, and those can and do lead her astray.

After reading the digital short story "Edie Kiglatuk's Christmas," I had the feeling that I would really enjoy the series, so I'm very glad I bought the first two books. When I'm ready to risk fictional frostbite once again, I have the second book, The Boy in the Snow, waiting for me.

White Heat by M.J. McGrath

ISBN: 9780670022489

Viking © 2011

Hardcover, 400 pages

Amateur Sleuth, #1 Edie Kiglatuk mystery

Rating: A

Source: Purchased from Book Outlet

Edie Kiglatuk's Christmas by M.J. McGrath

First Line: The shortest day of the year didn't count for much up on Ellesmere Island.

It's just a few days before Christmas on Ellesmere Island, a remote area in the Nunavut Territory bordering Greenland, and it's been dark for two months. A body is found in the snow, and what others at first believe to be a drunken accident, Edie Kiglatuk sees as a fight that turned deadly. If it was a fight, everyone thinks only one person could be responsible, and when that person goes into hiding with the victim's three-year-old daughter, Edie knows she has to find them before a vigilante search party does.

I've been reading good things about M.J. McGrath's books White Heat and The Boy in the Snow, so when I had the opportunity to read this short story, I couldn't say no. I've found these digital "extras" to be the perfect way to introduce myself to new books and authors, and "Edie Kiglatuk's Christmas" was no exception. The description of the setting had me appreciating the land's bleak beauty while thinking I had to snap icicles off my earlobes. Edie herself is just the type of character I can get attached to, and with a magical twist at story's end, what can I say? Those two M.J. McGrath novels have moved from my wish list onto a purchase receipt. I definitely want to know more about Edie and the country she calls home.

"Edie Kiglatuk's Christmas" by M.J. McGrath

Digital short story, 66 pages

Penguin Books © 2013

Short Story

Rating: B

Source: NetGalley