The Boy in the Snow

by MJ McGrath, Viking Adult, November 2012

This is the second Edie Kiglatuk novel by MJ McGrath.  In this mystery Edie, an Inuit from near the Arctic Circle is in Alaska to support her ex husband Sammy in his Iditarod race.  In a walk in the woods prior to the race, Edie finds a frozen corpse of an infant boy. Who he is, how he died and how he came to be placed in the woods serves as one of two major story lines.  The second story line centers on tourism land development and the cut throat politics that is involved in it.  Edie relentlessly follows the clues related to the infant's death wherever they take her.  An Old Russian Orthodox community comes under suspicion for the child’s death because Edie has reported seeing some members of this community near the spot where she found the boy.  Local prejudices against this reclusive community lead the local police to the Old Believers for their murder suspect. 

The look we get into Inuit culture and customs and descriptions of the landscape of the frozen North are the strong suites of this story.  The author knows this culture and is able to weave into this story many aspects of this fascinating native community.  A scene later in the novel where the characters fight for survival is compelling in its realism.  Unfortunately the mystery and its characters do not hold up through this story.  Edie as the heroine is hard to like; she is somewhat self righteous and lacking in emotion (is Derek a love interest a/o partner -impossible to tell from this story).  The two storylines which finally intersect are improbable at best.  The denouement is way too convenient to accept.  

In my opinion the first novel in this series, White Heat was stronger than this one.  I still think this could be a good mystery series.  Its settings and characters are  unique in a genre where many protagonists are indistinguishable from one another. I think a more focused story with a bit better character development could really improve this series.  Read this one if you love stories of the frozen wilderness, but read White Heat first if you haven’t. 

I read a copy of this novel provided by the publisher.

Heartbroke Bay

Heartbroke Bay

by Lynn D'urso, November, 2010, Berkerly Trade

 ...good historical fiction but characters act annoyingly out of character in final chapters

Lots of spoilers in this review

I had difficulty deciding how I felt about this novel. It tells the story of Hannah Butler who comes to America as a ladies maid in the last decade of the nineteenth century. On a train ride west, almost out of boredom, she elopes with Hans Nelson. Nelson is an attractive man who is traveling west to Alaska to mine for gold. The couple travel from Seattle to Skagway, encounter conditions for which they are completely unprepared – no shelter available causing them to sleep outdoors. They retreat to Juneau to work and wait out the winter and then return north in search of gold. Through the winter they meet Dutch, a dreamer with information on a gold field in the north, Harky a simple minded soul who will provide the muscle for their team and Michael, an Irishman who owns the ship which will take them north.

The author details their trip north to Heartbroke Bay. The story has an authentic Alaskan feel to it. One can only image how brave those who settled this land were. The trip north is a sea voyage fraught with peril. They arrive and set up camp to begin their search for gold. A Tlingit Indian, Negook visits and warns them that settling in this part of the region is not safe – earthquakes, tsunamis, etc. The group ignores his advice (always happens that way doesn’t it!). There is a growing attraction between Hannah and Michael which adds more tension to an already tense group. Nothing goes right for the group, very little gold is recovered and catastrophically their ship is lost when an iceberg destroys it.

Unbeknownst to her husband Hans, Hannah succumbs to Michael’s advances and they become lovers. Helped by Negook they do locate a gold vein and harvest significant amounts of gold. Disastrously, the group decides to delay their departure to mine more gold and pass up their last chance to leave the bay prior to winter’s arrival. The action really picks up here. Food is limited, Hans becomes injured, the weather is worsening and Hans suspects Hannah’s infidelity. One abortive attempt to walk out of the valley fails and costs the group half of the mined gold. After a hunting expedition Michael returns and unprovoked kills Harky and Dutch and attempts to kill Hans and Hannah. This is where I really had a problem with this story, Michael’s behavior is so unexpected and entirely out of character. I believe that the author builds a case for Hannah’s guilt but there is nothing in Michael’s personality that would support an act like this. This story is based on actual events that occurred in Alaska in 1899. It seems to me that the author lost this story when she gave up her narrative and molded this novel to match the actual events that took place. I was enjoying this book until the last few chapters when the characters began to act so annoyingly out of character, so it is difficult to highly recommend it but the Alaskan gold story is a good one and well told through most of this book.
I read a copy of this book bought at Amazon