Ghost Light (Nathan Active)

With the help of an Alaska Native grandmother suffering from dementia, Chukchi police chief Nathan Active hunts for the killer who left a woman’s expertly dismembered body in the ice cellar of an abandoned Inupiat fish camp. The investigation pulls Active into a dark tangle of love and jealousy, even as he struggles to recover from the PTSD that has haunted him since being wounded in a shootout in an earlier case.

Ghost Light (Nathan Active Mysteries)

Literature & Fiction

JONES, STAN

Watts, Patricia

United States

Bowhead Press

With the help of a demented Alaska Native elder, Chukchi police chief Nathan Active hunts for the killer who left a woman's expertly dismembered body in the ice cellar of an abandoned Inupiat Eskimo fish camp. The investigation pulls Active into a dark tangle of love and jealousy, even as he struggles to recover from the PTSD that has haunted him since being wounded in a shootout in an earlier case. The case starts when Tommie Leokuk's husband brings her to Active's office to show him what she found in her latest midnight ramble around the Arctic hamlet of Chukchi. From the pouch of her traditional atiqluk, she pulls a human jawbone with a single molar still in place. Tommie's dementia means she can't explain where she found it. As her husband explains, "She lost her brain few years ago." At first, Chief Active doesn't know whether she's found a murder victim or an old grave opened by erosion or scavengers. He soon discovers it's very much a murder case, one of the most tangled he's seen. The victim had two lovers, one male, one female. Both become suspects as the investigation proceeds. At the same time, Active grapples with PTSD from being shot in a prior case. When he starts to wonder how his gun would taste, he realizes it's time to see Chukchi's tribal healer, Nelda Qivits, who believes anything can be cured by a cup of bitter sourdock tea in her little cabin on a back street of Chukchi. ______________________ Ghost Light is the seventh installment in the critically acclaimed Nathan Active series: "Painterly descriptions of Alaska's natural beauty and the lives of the native people are fascinating." - USA Today "An enchanting series" - People "You can feel the bite of the west wind that comes screaming across the Alaska tundra and sense the isolation of the Inupiat Eskimos who live in this desolate part of the world." - New York Times Review of Books

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Mystery

THE SAND GARDEN (THE DANA FORSYTHE MYSTERIES)

WASCHE, MARY

Blizzards, tundra, Eskimos, bush pilots, and bingo-loving grandmas enliven this literate ethnic mystery starring Alaska State Trooper Nathan Active, who has been assigned to the remote Arctic town of Chukchi. Though born an Inupiat Eskimo, Active was raised in Anchorage by white parents and has little knowledge of his native culture. During the long months he has spent in Chukchi, he has rallied against the icy weather and struggled to understand his two cultural identities, but he realizes how deeply he has been settling into the rhythms of community life when Grace Palmer, a local beauty queen, goes missing. The state trooper mounts a search that ultimately leads him halfway across Alaska—and gives him plenty of time to discover he is in love with Grace. Closing in on the answers, however, he discovers evidence that points to an agonizing situation: she is either dead, or she is a cold-blooded killer.

Frozen Sun: A Nathan Active Mystery (The Nathan Active Mysteries)

Nathan Active, the top cop in a swath of the Alaskan tundra that is larger than15 U.S. states, has a new mystery to unravel after a dog musher is killed by a snowmobile. When the case is connected with Alaska’s gorgeous female governor, Active is swept into the bizarre family affairs and outsized political ambitions of the most dangerous woman he has ever met. Now the counter-moves that have been put into place by the governor threaten the lives of both his beloved Grace Palmer and her daughter, Nita. With his career on the line, Active has to outwit the governor and save the people he cares for most before time runs out.

Tundra Kill (The Nathan Active Mysteries)