Mutt leapt up to the seat of the snow machine as Kate thumbed the throttle and together they roared twenty-five miles over unplowed road to Niniltna, four miles past the village to the ghost town of Kanuyaq, and up the rutted, icy path to the Step. There, Kate dismounted, postholed through the snow to the…
The second outing of ex-spy Iris Sparks and noble-born Gwendolyn Bainbridge, now owners and proprietors of the Right Sort Marriage Bureau. Of course it will never only be about uniting the right man with the right woman and receiving a bounty after the vows for good work done well. This time it’s blackmail of a…
I RODE THE ALASKA RAILROAD from Anchorage to Fairbanks in the early Seventies to get to the University of Alaska. It took a minimum of twelve hours, because the train would stop what seemed like every five minutes to let off a hunter, or pick up a fisherman, or drop off supplies for a homesteader,…
“Sit still,” Dinah said, yanking Kate’s head around by a fistful of hair. “Ouch!” Kate, wedged into Katya’s high chair, muttered something beneath her breath. “Stop whining,” Dinah said, no sympathy in face or voice. “It wasn’t my idea to give you a crew cut.” “It’s not a crew cut.” “It might as well be. …
Barbara Peters of the Poisoned Pen Bookstore calls this kind of book a “palate cleanser,” something you read between crime fiction novels whose villains keep you up nights. No villains here, just a sweet summer tale of love and loss and new love found, not only romantic but of home and community, of friendship, of…
Read more A sweet summer tale of love and loss and new love found
…almost seventy feet of snow fell on the summit of the Chilkoot that winter… —Pierre Berton, The Klondike Fever FIRST LIGHT AND FEAR jerked me awake at four-thirty. I woke Sharyn and Rhonda, thinking to get a really early start on the day, but Len’s group was up before us. The Belgians of course had…
Read more First light and fear jerked me awake at four-thirty.
The statue of a Greek archer, found in the temple of Aphaia on the island of Aegina, just offshore of Athens. The temple was built circa 600 BC. This statue is a 3D printed copy of the original and painted to what they think it looked like back then. –currently on display at the “Chroma”…
ONE Niniltna, June 25 “Lots of spirits all over, this year,”They whisper. —A Quick Brush of Wings, Mary TallMountain They would argue later about when it all began, perhaps with the death in July, or maybe the meeting in Washington, D.C. the month before, or even with the fall of the Berlin Wall in…
The first crime fiction convention panel I was ever on was moderated by Tony Hillerman and it ruined me for any panel I was on afterward because he was as good a raconteur out loud as he was on the page. This collection of Tony’s articles and tales is proof positive, from the hilarious title…
Read more Hillerman was as good a raconteur out loud as he was on the page
What the HELL was I thinking? —entry from Happy Camp log, Chilkoot Trail I WASN’T GOING TO let anyone rush me. I wasn’t going to let me rush me. I was going to take it one foot at a time, one boulder at a time. I was going slow, I was going careful, I was…
