[an Alaska short story, written for The Mysterious North] THEIR OVERCOATS STEAMED in the red-hot glow of the tiny stove, the steam rising to form ice on the ceiling of the cramped canvas tent. After a day’s slogging up and down the pass, they were each man and woman among them soaked to the skin,…
This photo was taken from the Old Cataract Hotel in Aswan during my visit to Egypt in December 2019. And it was the direct inspiration for this snippet from Theft of an Idol: The banks of the canal slipped past. Two boys in a rickety rowboat paddled out to catch hold of the rail and hitch…
[a short story inspired by my father, written for Two of the Deadliest] …landing strips in Bush Alaska weren’t that hard to come by, and he found one mere minutes after he started looking, a pale scar on a leveled-off foothill at the mouth of a canyon carved out by a rushing, unruly creek. There…
I wrote the first Eye of Isis novel, Death of an Eye, before I went to Egypt. When it came time to write the second in the series (Disappearance of a Scribe) I knew I had to have a better sense of the Red Land and the Black Land than I could get on YouTube,…
[from “The Perfect Gift,” written for Wolfsbane and Mistletoe, an anthology featuring werewolves at Christmas.] The Alaska state troopers in Anchorage worked out of a five-story rectangular building with a dull gray exterior and an interior cut into matching gray cubicles. Littered surfaces of metal desks were lit by fluorescent tubes, every third or fourth…
Read more “Maybe I just have a sixth sense for big good-looking doofuses.”
[from “Missing, Presumed…” a Liam Campbell short story] ELI SYLVESTER HORRELL, fisher , husband, father, went overboard halfway between Dutch Harbor and the Pribilof Islands. Weather conditions that day in January included fifteen-knot winds and twelve-foot swells. The crew of the JERI A. had seen Horrell go in. In spite of an intensive search by…
[from “On the Evidence,” a Liam Campbell short story] THE PHONE RANG right next to Liam’s ear. He snatched it up before it could ring again. “It’s supposed to be my day off.” “Yes, sir,” Corporal Prince replied amiably, ignoring the snarl in her superior officer’s voice. Next to him, Wy muttered and burrowed beneath…
[from “The Eyak Interpreter,” a Kate Shugak short story So here we are in Anchorage, staying at Dad’s townhouse on Westchester Lagoon. Kate and Mutt are out for a walk on the Coastal Trail . There’s nothing on television and I don’t want to go anywhere until I don’t drool when I talk. Disgusting, so…
Read more …so I’m sitting here writing a post for my twenty-seven blog followers…
Some people who like my books have formed an organization called the Danamaniacs. They have a page on Facebook, here, and have given me permission to post there. On June 5th, I gave them an update on the status of Theft of an Idol, aka Isis3 or the third Eye of Isis novel, as follows:…
[from “Siren Song,” a Kate Shugak short story] The prosecution had rested the day before with an air of relief. The defense had recalled the investigating officer that morning, extracting without difficulty more evidence over time of many of Washington’s—the defense here coughed deprecatingly—family in the house at McKinley and Alder, as well as evidence…