Alaska Traveler - Dispatches from America's Last Frontier

Kate Shugak used to investigate for the Anchorage DA's office—a job that brought her face-to-face with some of the very worst of humanity. You can only do that sort of work for so long without it getting to you, though… and then, once it does, once it really does, you have to put a lot of distance between you and it. Fortunately for Kate, if there's one thing Alaska has a lot of, it's distances.

So, she's moved back to The Park, to a homestead cabin that's off the grid and a lifetime away from the city…and yet, condo or cabin, Polo or parka, somehow people manage to be bad all over. And though always reluctant, Kate Shugak seems unable to remain uninvolved. She investigates.

Volume One contains the first three Kate Shugak novels—the Edgar-award winning A Cold Day for Murder, along with A Fatal Thaw, and Dead in the Water—as well as the short story prequel, "Nooses Give."

Kate Shugak, former investigator for the Anchorage DA, returns in this omnibus edition containing books seven through nine of the award-winning series.

Breakup is set during that uniquely Alaskan time of year when the winter's snow is turning into a slushy mud, the rivers are rising, the grizzlies are waking, and taxes are coming due. It's the time of year when it seems that if something can go wrong, it will, which for Kate inevitably means getting involved in a murder investigation. Or two.

Killing Grounds finds Kate working aboard a fish tender, earning some extra money through seasonal labor. Her job becomes much more complicated when a man's body washes up — widely known as an abusive, womanizing, anti-union all-around not-very-nice guy, it seems that just about everyone could have a motive to kill him. Even members of Kate's own family.

In Hunter's Moon, Kate accepts a contract to guide a party of vacationing computer executives on an Alaska hunting retreat.  It's a tense and unpleasant group to begin with, but when the fog rolls in and people start dying, it becomes apparent that there's very little accidental about anything that's happening. Survival is the name of the game.

Also included: the short stories "Under the Influence" and "Conspiracy."

Kate Shugak, former investigator for the Anchorage DA, returns in this omnibus edition containing books four through six of the award-winning series.

In A Cold-Blooded Business, Kate goes undercover at Royal Petroleum's North Slope facilities. They've been having some serious problems with the white stuff—not snow, but cocaine—and their highly-paid, isolated, somewhat stir-crazy employees have been overdosing at an alarming rate. Kate's job is to identify the dealer and staunch the flow before more people die. It's never that simple, of course.

In Play with Fire, Kate and friends stumble across a naked, decaying corpse in the woods. Judged death by misadventure by the Troopers, Kate's sense of justice demands that she launch her own investigation, leading her to ask some very uncomfortable questions of a frontier faith community. Questions that might drive someone to kill…again.

In Blood Will Tell, Kate is forced to involve herself in Native politics, attending the annual Federation convention in Anchorage and investigating the deaths of several board members. Opposition to a new development project seems to have been the link tying the victims together, but when Kate poses the question that all detective work begins with—cui bono?—she finds there are more suspects on the list than not.

Also included: the two Kate Shugak short stories, "Wreck Rights" and "Cherchez la Femme."

The Star Svensdotter trilogy is comprised of Dana Stabenow’s Second Star, A Handful of Stars, and Red Planet Run, collected here in a single volume along with the Martian short story, “No Place Like Home.”

Follow Esther “Star” Svensdotter from the construction of the Ellfive habitat through adventures in the asteroid belt and onward, to the ruddy fourth planet that seems mankind's inexorable destiny. Along the way she'll encounter Luddite terrorists, military tyrants, grifters, drifters, eugenicists, murderers, alien and artificial intelligences… all in the pursuit of a brighter future and broader horizons. It’s science fiction on a golden-age model, when we all dreamed of growing up to become astronauts and the greatest challenge to manned space exploration wasn't the budgetary oversight committee, but just finding someone with the right amount of gumption for the job. Star Svensdotter has gumption in spades.

Alaska State Trooper Liam Campbell, newly promoted to corporal, is slowly making a home for himself in the remote town of Newenham. Between DUIs and domestic disputes, life is relatively tranquil, until Campbell's girlfriend, Bush pilot Wyanet Chouinard, delivers a shipment of mail to a remote post office, where she finds the postmistress murdered. The hunt is on for a killer who seems to have vanished into the Bush… until another victim is found.

The third book in Stabenow's Liam Campbell series, Nothing Gold Can Stay is inspired in part by the true-life story of the Anchorage serial killer, Robert "Baker Bob" Hansen.

Where there’s smoke there’s fire, and no one knows this better than New Jersey bounty hunter Stephanie Plum.
 
Dead bodies are showing up in shallow graves on the empty construction lot of Vincent Plum Bail Bonds. No one is sure who the killer is, or why the victims have been offed, but what is clear is that Stephanie’s name is on the killer’s list.

Short on time to find evidence proving the killer’s identity, Stephanie faces further complications when her family and friends decide that it’s time for her to choose between her longtime off-again-on-again boyfriend, Trenton cop Joe Morelli, and the bad boy in her life, security expert Ranger. Stephanie’s mom is encouraging Stephanie to dump them both and choose a former high school football star who’s just returned to town. Stephanie’s sidekick, Lula, is encouraging Stephanie to have a red-hot boudoir “bake-off.” And Grandma Bella, Morelli’s old-world grandmother, is encouraging Stephanie to move to a new state when she puts “the eye” on Stephanie.

With a cold-blooded killer after her, a handful of hot men, and a capture list that includes a dancing bear and a senior citizen vampire, Stephanie’s life looks like it’s about to go up in smoke.