Andrew K. (kuligowskiandrewt) - , reviewed on 9/7/2013 + 569 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 1

Degrees of Separation by Sue Henry

Once again, death by human hand strikes the Mat-Su Valley region in Alaska. And once again, musher Jessie Arnold and state trooper Alex Jensen are in the middle of the action this time (and I don't think I'm providing a major spoiler here), with Homer, AK based retiree Maxie McNabb making a guest appearance.

The basic mystery: Jessie finds a body while on a dog-training run near her house. While trying to resolve this mystery, more people end up dead or injured. Are these unrelated, or as the title of the book implies are there very few Degrees of Separation between the events. From a mystery standpoint, I would rate this one as typical at best. I was disappointed that I was able to peg the murderer so early into the book, and was quite surprised to find out that I was actually correct in my guess usually, it turns out the person I suspected ends up exonerated or a subsequent victim of the real murderer.

Then, there are the earthquakes. There are minor and not so minor tremblers that occur throughout the book. It would be an expected, perhaps stereotypical, device to use these natural phenomena as a a major plot device. Surprisingly, however, they are largely not integral to the plot. Part of me wants to congratulate the author for not falling into cliché; perhaps Ms. Henry was intentionally demostrating to us that Alaskans largely take them in stride. The rest of me was disappointed I felt certain that a building would collapse on the murderer during the climactic reveal, or alternatively that they might use it as cover to flee, or and I actually felt cheated that the quakes served such a minor role, especially since the cover illustration is devoted to them.

The main mystery was solved. However, a number of plot threads were apparently intentionally left open. If, as in the Colorado Kid, the unresolved nature is the point of the plot, that is understandable. Here, it felt like we simply hit our word count and needed to close off the novel. Perhaps the author was intending to leave them for her next book if so, we appear destined to remain disappointed the 13th novel in this series, Cold as Ice, was announced 5 or 6 years ago but has never been released. If this is the last book in the series, it is a disappointing conclusion to what has largely been a pleasant 12 book run.)

Rating: 2 1/2 stars, rounded up to 3 (and I confess to being generous out of respect for the author's prior works).

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