Review of Shaman Pass by Stan Jones (Soho Press, 2003)

‘Uncle Frosty’, a Inupiat mummy originally found in a cave in Shaman Pass, has been returned to Chukchi, Alaska, by the Smithsonian Institution.  Not everyone is happy that he will be displayed in the local museum rather than being left on the tundra in the traditional way after death.  Within a few hours he has been stolen along with an ancient ivory harpoon and amulet.  A day later Victor Solomon is found out on the ice sheet next to a fishing hole speared with the harpoon.  State Trooper Nathan Active, an Inupiat born locally but raised by white adoptive parents in Anchorage has the task of investigating the death.  The evidence seems to point a local indigenous rights activist, but it is clear that there is more to the case than meets the eye, the key to which is the identity of ‘Uncle Frosty’.

Shaman Pass is a fairly straightforward police procedural, but one given a nice twist through its setting and Nathan Active’s position as an outside insider.  Jones does a very good job of capturing the social relations and tensions of an Inupiat community interfacing with white culture and laws and of placing the reader in the landscape and creating a sense of place.  Active is a solid lead character and provides a nice pair of eyes through which to view the local community and its ways.  The writing is nicely paced and expressive and the plot for the most part works well.  The final third of the story, however, falls a little flat.  The mystery element is gone, replaced with more of a thriller-style conclusion and some sub-plots, such as Active’s relationship with his grandfather, are forgotten.  Overall, Shaman Pass was an enjoyable and engaging read and I’m looking forward to catching up with Trooper Active in the third book in the series, Frozen Sun.

 

Review of White Sky, Black Ice by Stan Jones (Soho Crime, 1999)

Nathan Active is a state trooper working in a small, remote Alaskan village. He is an Inupiat, born in the village, but raised in Anchorage by white adoptive parents. Despite his real mother living locally, he hopes that within a year he’ll back in the city rather than stuck in the sticks. The suicide rate in the area is high, but when two men seemingly kill themselves in the same week, Active’s interest is piqued. As he starts to investigate it soon becomes clear that the case could encroach into a political minefield that might have major repercussions for the local community. As such, he has to plot a course that tries to uncover the truth without setting off a mine.

The three great strengths of White Sky, Black Ice are sense of place, cultural politics and characterisation. This is very much a book of rural Alaska and of the Inupiat community and its relations amongst itself and the outside world. The landscape is richly evoked and the reader is transported to a place entering an Alaskan winter. Like Adrian Hyland’s Emily Tempest books, Jones uses the insider/outsider role of the lead character to very good effect. Nathan Active occupies a liminal space between communities. Jones uses the position to examine the nature of the Inupiat community, its various cultural practices, organization and issues. He also nicely captures the politics of resource extraction and the pressures of big business and politics on the lives of ordinary people. The plot is relatively straightforward and my guess is that the average mystery reader will have the murderer identified a long way from the end. What is very nicely done, however, is how the resolution is handled by Nathan Active given its potential ramifications to the local community. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and I’ll be reading others in the series.

Sometimes things work out for the best

I managed to leave the book I was reading on the kitchen table this morning. Nathan Jones' White Sky, Black Ice turned up in the post at work, however, so I headed to the airport this afternoon to fly to London with high expectations after the review I read over at Reactions to Reading a couple of weeks ago. The book I was reading was so-so. I'm a 150 pages into WKBI, set in a small Alaskan town and introducing State Trooper Nathan Active, and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I think there's probably legs in this series, assuming the second half continues in the same vein. More when I've finished. So far though, so good.