Tag: Liam Campbell series

“All I care about is that they stay up in the air long enough to get me where I’m going.”

“I could be wrong, Liam, but I think this is a piece off an old C-47.” “What’s a C-47?” “It’s the cargo equivalent of a DC-3.”  When he continued to look blank, she said, “Liam, I can’t believe how little you know about flying and still manage to live in Alaska.  The DC-3 was the first economically…

Read more “All I care about is that they stay up in the air long enough to get me where I’m going.”

“I was going to hit him with the artichoke hearts, but it’s an awfully big jar–did you want to see?”

“So, there I was, arms full of four bags full of groceries, and coming out of the store I see this guy breaking into my car.” “And that was when you hit him with the jar of tomatoes,” Alaska State Trooper Sergeant Liam Campbell said, his gaze rapt. “Sun-dried tomatoes,” the woman sitting next to…

Read more “I was going to hit him with the artichoke hearts, but it’s an awfully big jar–did you want to see?”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s my fault or not. It will be by the time I get there.”

  On either side Newenham airport fell rapidly away from them and Liam’s stomach gave its usual takeoff flip-flop.  “She’s going to kill me,” he muttered through clenched teeth. He hadn’t meant to be heard but the headset was a good one and Prince turned her head to stare.  “Why would she be mad at you?” The…

Read more “It doesn’t matter if it’s my fault or not. It will be by the time I get there.”

It had not been a fun summer.

And now here Rebecca was, five months later, waking up in a one-room shack deep in a canyon somewhere between the Wood River Mountains, which together formed part of the southwestern curve of the Alaska Range.  The mine sat on a creek in a deep, narrow crevice formed between three mountains four, five and six thousand…

Read more It had not been a fun summer.

“Could have been a bear,” Charlene told Liam. Two others had had their canoe shot out from under them on Three Lake. “Probably not a bear,” Liam told Charlene.

Neither one of them was a pilot, so they chartered Wy Chouinard to fly them into their preferred hunting area, the long, level plateau between the broad plain that sloped down into the Nushagak River on the east and the Wood River Mountains on the west, where a small but fecund herd of caribou fattened…

Read more “Could have been a bear,” Charlene told Liam. Two others had had their canoe shot out from under them on Three Lake. “Probably not a bear,” Liam told Charlene.

“Okay, you can be boss.”

“Anything else?” “Yeah, the phone was ringing when I walked in the door.  Some guy, name of Montgomery, looking for–” “Lyle Montgomery, looking for his daughter,” Liam said with a sigh, and glanced at the calendar.  First of September, first of the month.  Montgomery was right on schedule. “You know him?” “He’s got a daughter missing.  Name of Cheryl.”  Liam…

Read more “Okay, you can be boss.”

“…turning and banking again she came around for a second pass, this time waiting another fifteen seconds before she dropped the mailbag.”

Next up was a zig to Akamanuk, perching precariously on the edge of the Nushagak River two big bends above Newenham.  She buzzed the homestead, two buildings, a short airstrip crowded with trees and a tilled rectangle of earth with what looked like a very healthy crop of potatoes.  Ted came out and peered skyward.  She turned, banked,…

Read more “…turning and banking again she came around for a second pass, this time waiting another fifteen seconds before she dropped the mailbag.”

Introducing the crime.

  Liam rifled through the various statements he’d taken at the airport the day before.  Nobody saw nobody doing nothing, he reflected sadly.  At a conservative estimate, culled from Gruber’s statement, at the time of Bill DeCreft’s death there had been at least ten small planes in the act of landing or taking off, one…

Read more Introducing the crime.