Book review – Dead in the water

If you go to the library and ask Shirley to recommend a good whodunit the chances are that she will recommend a book by Alaskan born Dana Stabenow. Intrigued by this advice I decided to read one of Dana’s books; it was very good.

Dana was raised on a 75 foot fishing trawler working the coast of Alaska and out into the Bering sea which separates Russia and Alaska and the book is set in the area she knows so well. As a result this story is not only a well put together whodunit but also vividly illustrates the incredibly difficult conditions the fishermen, and women, work under during the lobster season.

The returns are huge but the dangers very real, on average one boat is lost every season and boat’s insurance is void when doing this work.

We also learn of the life of the Aleut people in the small, bleak Alaskan harbour villages dotted along the coast. Their only reason to be there is as a base for the boats to unload their catch and reprovision.

The story revolves around one such lobster boat which has come under the suspicion of the District Attorney and subsequently under cover investigator Kate Shugak has gained position as a member of the five person crew. To go any further would be giving the plot away. Suffice to say it is fast moving and extremely well told.

However at 196 pages it is short and ends very abruptly, it was as if the author had suddenly decided that she was tired of writing. All the loose ends, and there were plenty of sub stories to be sorted, were quickly drawn together and briefly explained at a meeting of the ‘goodie’ characters in a restaurant.

The surprise at the sudden ending was compounded by the fact that there appeared to be still twenty five pages to go. It turned out that these were just an advertising ploy in the form the first chapter of another book Dana had written. I was not impressed.