A Kate Shugak Investigation

Eighteen months ago, Aleut Kate Shugak quit her job investigating sex crimes for the Anchorage DA’s office and retreated to her father’s homestead in a national park in the interior of Alaska. But the world has a way of beating a path to her door, however remote. In the middle of one of the bitterest Decembers in recent memory ex-boss — and ex-lover — Jack Morgan shows up with an FBI agent in tow.

On her homestead in the middle of twenty million acres of national Park, Aleut P.I. Kate Shugak is caught up in spring cleaning, unaware that just miles away another Park rat is planning a massacre. When the sound of gunfire finally dies away, nine of his neighbors lie dead in the snow.But did he kill all nine, or only eight? The ninth victim was killed with a different weapon. It’s up to Kate and her husky-wolf sidekick Mutt to untangle the life of the dead blonde with the tarnished past and find her killer.

Once, Kate Shugak was the star investigator of the Anchorage D.A.'s office. Now she's gone back to her Aleut roots in the far Alaska north - where her talent for detection makes her the toughest crime-tracker in that stark and mysterious land.

A string of drug-related accidents at an oil company's rig in the Arctic Circle forces Kate Shugak to go undercover to scope out a cocaine connection along the TransAlaskan Pipeline. She's out to ID a major deal and shut down his operation. Of course, the deal has other ideas....

A mushroom hunting foray turns gruesome when Kate Shugak stumbles across a burnt, decaying corpse amid a grove of morels. Was the deceased the hapless victim of last year's forest fire? Why has no one reported him missing? And why wasn't he wearing any clothes? Absent evidence of foul play, the troopers are inclined to call it death by misadventure; Kate's instincts suggest otherwise, leading her down a path that requires her to confront issues of community, faith, and free will.

It's a crisp, snowless October in The Park. The root cellar is full, the cordwood is stacked, the oil drums are filled and there’s a freshly-butchered moose in her cache, but Kate Shugak must leave her cabin and head into the chaos of Anchorage, where the Alaska Federation of Natives’ annual convention is being held. Why? Because board members of the Niniltna Native Association have been dying...board members who just happened to oppose a lucrative new development project.

When winter's done, but spring has not yet fully sprung, much of Alaska turns to slush. Locally, it's called "breakup," and it's a…messy time of year. It's certainly messy for Kate Shugak; between doing her taxes, being chased by grizzlies, and getting shot at by feuding families, she has to cope with an NTSB investigation that hits very close to home. Then, of course, there's the body in the woods. And up at the old mining town. And…being Kate Shugak, somehow she can't leave well enough alone, and begins to tease apart a well-planned and surprising crime.

It's fishing season, and Kate Shugak is working with Old Sam aboard the fish tender Freya when Cal Meany floats up dead. His reputation as a womanizer, strike breaker, and abusive father ensures that there are several suspects, multiple motives, and quite possibly more than one murderer. While Kate investigates the killing, her aunties mend nets, operate an illegal fish camp, and impart cultural wisdom to Jack and his son Johnny. Ultimately, Kate finds herself in grave danger, as even her aunts join the list of suspects.

Guiding becomes a deadly business when Kate Shugak accepts a contract to shepherd a group of German computer executives on an Alaskan hunting retreat. As the fog rolls in and people start dying, Kate and her boyfriend Jack discover how very seriously their charges take the sport. A hunter's moon signals a season of gathering and plenty, but Kate finds herself out of resources and at her most vulnerable. She must find the strength to not only survive, but repay. This time, the guide becomes the huntress.

A daughter hires Kate Shugak to clear her mother's name. Twenty years ago, her mother was convicted of arson and murder, of setting fire to the family home while her two sons were inside. One died, and one was maimed. Her daughter has always believed in her innocence, though the mother herself had accepted the verdict and the life sentence without protest. Now the mother is terminally ill, and her daughter wants her free. But as Kate begins the investigation, it seems the mother isn't the only one who wants to leave the past alone.

Kate Shugak is determined to convict the odious Louis Deem, who has been arrested and tried for several serious crimes but never convicted. This time, Kate is convinced, it will be different. But when the jury returns a verdict of not guilty, Kate believes that Deem has literally got away with murder. And when, a few weeks later, two people are killed after an apparent robbery, Kate can't help but believe that Deem is involved...

In Alaska, somebody disappears every day. Hunters who head into the wilderness... Fishermen who brave the great rivers...Tourists who attempt to do both. But lately too many people have disappeared. And Kate is about to discover it's got something to do with the recent discovery of the world's second-largest gold mine in her very own backyard.