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FINE AND BITTER SNOW, A
by Dana Stabenow
Minotaur Books, June 2002
304 pages
$24.95
ISBN: 0312205481


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

As usual, the first thing to strike the reader in one of Dana Stabenow's books is the sheer beauty and sublimity of the Alaskan countryside. Her stories seem larger than life because they take place against a backdrop of the most beautiful, the most awesome, the most evocative settings in the United States. Events must be heroic to match that distinction.

In this book it is that environment that might possibly be threatened. The new national administration has plans for the ANWR. The chief ranger in the Park, Daniel Patrick O'Brian, does not fit into these plans and his superiors are suggesting he may want to take early retirement. Kate Shugak is furious and has every intention of saving his job. She goes to two old women who have been around the Park for a very long time. They had been friends of her grandmother and they had dandled Kate on their knees and taught her the wonders of the Park. Dina Willner and Ruthe Bauman are local treasures.

Later Trooper Jim Chopin goes up to their cabin and finds Dina dead and Ruthe severely wounded with Dan O'Brian standing over them bloody and groggy. In one of their cabins he finds a damaged Viet Nam veteran who has the murder weapon with him. Jim isn't comfortable with this man as a murderer, however, and he and Kate team up to see if they can figure out what really happened. Kate, meanwhile, is emotionally vulnerable and not sure at all where her life is going next. All she knows is that Jack's son Johnny is somehow part of it.

It is impossible not to like and empathize with every character in the story. Even the most standoffish, when we learn the reasons for their behavior, become human and mortal. All characters are authentic, three-dimensional, believable. We have lived with Kate through tragedy, happiness, and comedy, and we know she has grown and changed with each book. This is why these books never grow stale; they are constantly changing and growing.

Use every sense as you read this book. In the cabin you can smell the metallic odor of blood from the battered and beaten bodies on the floor. And earlier you could smell the wonderful stew that they served Kate and taste its dense and singular flavor. Walk outside with Kate and feel the light powdery flakes of snow on your face and against your eyes. And stare into the flat metallic winter sun as it briefly rises and sets. The story engages the reader on every level.

While this book starts out with concern over the Alaskan wilderness, do not worry that it is a one-sided portrayal of a political point of view. There are those in the Park who favor drilling in ANWR and those who do not, and both sides are promulgated by supporters. This is not a political tract but the story of people who live in this land and are nurtured by it and who care what happens to it one way or another. And it is a story of those who do not understand this fact.

Reviewed by Sally A. Fellows, June 2002

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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