“Probably the only chance I’ll ever get, how could I resist?”
An excerpt from A Fatal Thaw, the second Kate Shugak novel:
“The mail plane called the tower in Tok, the tower called me, and I got in the air right away. I’ve been hitting every homestead on the way in.”
Kate walked around him and got the shotgun down from the rack over the door. She broke it open to check that it was loaded. It was. She turned. “Okay. Now I know. You’d better get on with passing the word.”
His expression relaxed, and he gave half a laugh and amazed her by swooping down for a swift, hard kiss. He laughed again at her expression and chucked her beneath the chin. “Probably the only chance I’ll ever get, how could I resist?”
The shotgun was on its way up and if the helicopter hadn’t been right in back of him she might even have fired off a round. He looked from her furious face to the shotgun and back, laughed again and actually had the gall to salute her.
Chatter Kate Shugak Uncategorized a fatal thaw Kate Shugak No Fixed Line the Kate Shugak series
If you don’t mind me saying so ,one of the best .However breakup had me laughing so much it’s my number one .Sent from Samsung tablet.
As it happens, A Fatal Thaw was my favorite Kate for a long time. Maybe even until Though Not Dead.
I love them all. Laughed silly for “Break up” and bawled for “Hunters Moon”. I love your characters and how i miss Alaska in every book. Please never stop writing Kate.
Hi Dana, Now I need to read every book over again! Well…except for Hunter’s Moon. You make Kate’s grief so real that I simply don’t want to experience that again. In fact, I keep reading your work because you make every meaningful character real.
Here’s something else…maybe beside the point—maybe a plot point idea: I grew up in San Francisco in the 1950s-60s, with parents who were from Minnesota. One of their SF friends, Miriam Levy, also had grown up in Minneapolis, and well-remembered her grandfather, a Russian Jewish fur trader who had made a living catching and skinning pelts in Russia, then crossing the islands to Alaska, making his way to Chicago to sell his furs. And going back to do it all over again. He eventually settled in Minneapolis.
Fast forward to 1965, when LBJ talked about the war on poverty and created his Great Society legislation. Miriam was hired to go to Alaska to study needs in the Eskimo communities. I think she had been hired by the new Office of Economic Opportunity, which had just begun Project Head Start. She went from village to village, and one day met people who well remembered her grandfather. I was a young adult when Miriam told us about the connections, and it resonated so strongly that I remember it still.
One of the many reasons I enjoy your stories is the way they connect the elders with the young. You have a way of creating community that’s not often seen or read; you highlight connections that most writers overlook or simply don’t see.
Thank you, Amy
Amy Karatz C 773.281.4000 myopicpoodle@gmail.com
There will only be one of you for all time. Fearlessly be yourself. Larry Davis M.D.
What a wonderful story, Amy! And thank you for that lovely compliment at the end.
I cry everytime I read Hunters Moon. Can’t wait for new one!
Me, too, Helen.