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I picked up this Kate Shugak mystery just to satisfy my need for an Alaska-set book, for the Where Are You Reading? Challenge. (This is becoming an issue around here.) But unlike some I have picked up just for their settings, this book was worth the time.

Kate Shugak was a police detective in Alaska but is now retired; she is also an Aleut (one kind of native Alaskan), with an interesting background. In Play With Fire, a forest fire the fall before has caused an extraordinary crop of morel mushrooms to pop up in the backcountry, and Kate is picking them to sell to an enthusiastic international market when she discovers a decomposing corpse. The same day, a young boy named Matthew shows up with some crumpled bills and hires her to search for his missing father. If this sounds awfully much like a coincidence, you are correct.

The mystery takes Kate into a small town with a very creepy religious tyrant and undertones of Jerry Falwell. Stabenow shares some details of the natural environment, flora and fauna, especially mushroom trivia. For me, the best part was learning about Shugak’s experience as a young “native” in Alaska, with snippets of cultural information and language; I would go back to this series for more of the same. I really enjoy a strong sense of place in my mystery novels, and this one has it. I would also return for more of Kate’s romance with Jack Morgan. So far he’s rather typical-romance-novel-hero by which I mean, perfect – but I’m not sick of him yet. Not a new favorite, but noteworthy.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: mystery |