Murder at Five Finger Light - A Jessie Arnold Mystery

Up north,
the summers are brief --
and winter, like death,
is cold and long . . .

Recovering from knee surgery that will cause her to miss the upcoming dogsled racing season, champion "musher" Jessie Arnold feels empty and bored -- so she grabs an opportunity to fill her days manning the Iditarod booth at the Alaska State Fair. But murder becomes an attraction here as well -- an especially brutal one -- when the corpse of a small-time hoodlum slain by a double-blade axe blow to the skull turns up on the fairgrounds. Jessie shouldn't get involved, having already seen too much violent death in her lifetime. But strange connections are linking the killing with a child's kidnapping . . . and with the sudden disappearance of her own beloved lead sled dog. Soon friends old and new will be pulled in as well when the unthinkable occurs: Jessie herself vanishes without a trace.

History is repeating itself on hundred years later on Alaska's breathtaking Inside Passage. Re-creating the famous Voyage of 1897, the Spirit of '98 is setting sail from Skagway, Alaska, en route to Seattle, Washington, carrying two tons of Yukon gold. Alaska State Trooper Alex Jensen and his love, famous female "musher" Jessie Arnold, are among the excited participants. The Grim Reaper is a passenger as well.

Dressed in period coustoume, Gold Rush buff Alex Jensen is only too happy to be representing the Troopers on this historic journey through a giant maze of scenic straits, harbors, and inlets. But the strange disappearance -- and probable death -- of a crew member pulls Alex rudely back to the present. As the only law officer in the vicinity, it is now his duty to unravel a twisted skein of lies, greed, and lethal shipboard secrets -- before the Spirit's fateful encounter with murderers abroad a stolen ketch writes a grim new chapter in Alaska's history.

Multiple award-winning author Sue Henry takes us into the heart of America's last frontier with a gripping tale of suspense set in a rugged land that appeals to the adventurous and strong ... and to those who are drawn to darkness.

Famed Alaskan "musher" Jessie Arnold thinks she's finally put her dark past behind her. But the excavations on her new cabin unearth a decades-old skeleton entombed in a crumbling basement wall -- along with a butterfly pendant necklace worn by the alleged victim of a brutal serial slayer who preyed on area women twenty years earlier.

Pulled once more into a murder investigation against her will, Jessie fears a grim, half-forgotten nightmare has been reborn. For, in this stark and lonely place, in the first days of the all-too-brief Alaskan summer, another woman has disappeared without a trace. The signs suggest the unthinkable: an insatiable human monster has returned. And the clues she's uncovering hint that Jessie Arnold may well be his next victim.