Whisper to the Blood, by Dana Stabenow, is set to be released on February 17th. Thanks to Library Thing, I managed to score an early reviewer copy. I did have to put my other books aside to get this read but I'm glad I did. It was a very interesting book.
Dana Stabenow was unfamiliar to me. She is evidently a prolific Alaskan writer but as I don't usually read mystery or crime novels, her books never popped up on my radar. The main character of the book is Kate Shugak. Kate is an Aleut woman living in a national park in Alaska. She lives with her wonderful dog Mutt and her foster son, Johnny. Jim, the park's police force also lives with Kate unofficially.
The story is about the people of the small town and their battles with each other and a huge gold mining company that is planning to start a mine in a portion of the park. Kate deals with murder, theft, and being a parent.
I enjoyed the book once the story really started picking up but I have to say that for me it was a slow start. I think part of the problem is that this book is 16th in a series and I jumped in blindly. I felt that there was a huge amount of back story that I was missing. I'm sure it's a fine balance for a writer in this situation. Do you create a book that reviews all the finer points, thus boring your faithful reader or do you create a book that fills in gaps now and then while advancing the storyline? She went for option two which was probably a good thing.
Next time I feel the need to buy a book (it comes along every so often) I'm going to look and see what else of hers I can find. I'm sure that followers of the series, will enjoy this new installment and if you are new to Dana Stabenow's writing, give it a shot. There is a bit of humor among the serious subject matter. I laughed out loud in a few places. That's always a good thing!
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