Murder and Mystery in the Last Frontier


Book Description

Was the Mafia involved in the 1972 disappearance of the plane carrying Congressmen Hale Boggs and Nick Begich, or was it just a simple case of bad weather? Who murdered the postmistress in Ruby? How did the Alaska State Troopers use cutting-edge science to find Sophie Sergie's killer? How does crime differ from one part of Alaska to another? Alaska has always had a high rate of violent crime. From the gold rush to the building of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline to the heyday of king crab fishing, the state's rich resources have attracted eager workers and criminals alike. Travel through time and space with true-crime writer Robin Barefield as she tells you about murder and mystery in Alaska from the early 1900s to the present day and from Juneau to Kiana, Nome, Anchorage, Kodiak, and places in between. Learn about serial killers Ed Krause, Richard Bunday, Gary Zieger, Robert Hansen, and Israel Keyes. Why did Michael Silka suddenly start killing the residents of remote Manley Hot Springs, and what reason did Louis Hastings have for murdering his neighbors in McCarthy? Why was no one ever caught and convicted for the gruesome massacre on the fishing boat Investor? Alaska is vast and breathtaking, but it can also be deadly. Take a road trip and learn about Alaska's past and present through its violent crime. Get a glimpse of murder and mystery in the Last Frontier.




Murder on Location


Book Description

In the Alaska Territory, suffragette Charlotte Brody is a newspaper reporter in the frontier town of Cordova. She’s a woman ahead of her time living on the rugged edge of civilization—but right now the most dangerous element she faces may come from sunny California . . . An expedition has arrived in the frigid wilderness to shoot North to Fortune—an epic motion picture featuring authentic footage of majestic peaks, vast glaciers, homesteaders, and Alaska Natives. But the film’s fortunes begin to go south as a local Native group grows angry at how they’re portrayed in the movie, fights break out, and cast and crew are beset by accidents and assaults. Finally, production is halted when the inebriated director falls into a crevasse—and dies of exposure. Soon Michael Brody—the town coroner and Charlotte’s brother—starts to suspect that Mother Nature was not responsible for Stanley Welsh’s death. Charlotte, who’s been writing about all the Hollywood glamor, is suddenly covering a cold-blooded crime story—and as springtime storms keep the suspects snowed in, she has to make sure the truth doesn’t get buried . . .




Murder at 40 Below


Book Description

Drawn from police files, eyewitness accounts, and news reports, these stories introduce extreme criminals in an extreme land.




The Last Kashmiri Rose


Book Description

In a land of saffron sunsets and blazing summer heat, an Englishwoman has been found dead, her wrists slit, her body floating in a bathtub of blood and water. But is it suicide or murder? The case falls to Scotland Yard inspector Joe Sandilands, who survived the horror of the Western Front and has endured six sultry months in English-ruled Calcutta. Sandilands is ordered to investigate, and soon discovers that there have been other mysterious deaths, hearkening sinister ties to the present case. Now, as the sovereignty of Britain is in decline and an insurgent India is on the rise, Sandilands must navigate the treacherous corridors of political decorum to bring a cunning killer to justice, knowing the next victim is already marked to die.




The Forest City Killer


Book Description

Dig deep into the unsolved murder of Jackie English and join the hunt for a serial killer Fifty years ago, a serial killer prowled the quiet city of London, Ontario, marking it as his hunting grounds. As young women and boys were abducted, raped, and murdered, residents of the area held their loved ones closer and closer, terrified of the monster — or monsters — stalking the streets. Homicide detective Dennis Alsop began hunting the killer in the 1960s, and he didn’t stop searching until his death 40 years later. For decades, detectives, actual and armchair, and the victims’ families and friends continued to ask questions: Who was the Forest City Killer? Was there more than one person, or did a depraved individual commit all of these crimes on his own? Combing through the files Detective Alsop left behind, researcher Vanessa Brown reopens the cases, revealing previously unpublished witness statements, details of evidence, and astonishing revelations. And through her investigation, Vanessa posits the unthinkable: is it possible that the Forest City Killer is still alive and, like the notorious Golden State Killer, a simple DNA test could bring him to justice?




Murder Over Kodiak


Book Description

When a floatplane mysteriously explodes above the Alaska wilderness, investigators begin digging into the lives of the five passengers and the pilot. Was the target of the bomb the U.S. senator in the midst of a hotly contended re-election campaign or her husband, a corporate raider with no shortage of enemies? Or could the bomb have been meant for the cannery owner involved in a contentious divorce, or the refuge manager who has a long list of adversaries, including one who has vowed to get even with him. Even the pilot could have been the target, since his girlfriend has violent tendencies and knows how to use explosives. Dr. Jane Marcus is determined to find who murdered her young assistant and the other passengers and the pilot of the floatplane, but when her own life is threatened, she knows she must and the murderer, before she becomes the next victim.




Cold Company


Book Description

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.




Finding Bethany


Book Description

“You don’t have to have a murdered sister to be a good homicide detective, but it helps.” Finding Bethany, the best-selling Alaskan book, is a behind-the-scenes true crime memoir of murder and justice in the Last Frontier of Alaska. Finding Bethany is the true story of how, as a young boy, Glen Klinkhart was unable to save his sister from a heinous sexual homicide, and how he began his journey as a police officer to find the lost, the missing, and to bring those who would do evil upon others to justice. His career as a homicide detective takes the reader along as he travels from the brink of exhaustion and obsession and into the dark and evil world of sociopathic killers, and those who would do anything to help them. Finding Bethany details what real life homicide investigations are like, from his unique perspective as a victim and as a reluctant hero. The reader will experience the bizarre twists and turns down dark paths which result in macabre dead ends, and unexpected miracles found within the darkest of circumstances. His cases include the stories of people who were willing to give of themselves for someone they often didn’t even know. Finding Bethany is also about two brothers – one a sociopath, the other a good man whose own love for his evil brother had been exploited his entire life.




Karluk Bones


Book Description

When two men, recently discharged from the air force, set out for a hunting trip on Kodiak Island in Alaska, they expect the adventure of a lifetime. Instead, they find themselves embroiled in a never-ending nightmare. More than forty years later, biologist Jane Marcus and her friends discover human remains near Karluk Lake in the middle of the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge. Jane soon learns a bullet was responsible for shattering the skull they found. What happened? Was the gunshot wound the result of a suicide, or was it homicide? Who was this individual who died in the middle of the wilderness, and when did he die? Jane can't stop asking questions, and she turns to Alaska State Trooper Sergeant Dan Patterson for answers. Sergeant Patterson doesn't have time for Jane and her questions because he is investigating the recent murder of a floatplane pilot on the island. Was the pilot shot by one of his passengers, by another pilot, by campers in the area where his body was found, or did his wife hire someone to kill him? The number of suspects in the case overwhelms Patterson, but a notebook in the pocket of the dead pilot provides clues to the last weeks of the pilot's life. With no time to spare for old bones, Patterson gives Jane permission to research the remains she found near Karluk Lake. Jane's investigation into the bones seems harmless to Patterson, but she awakens a decades-old crime which some believed they'd buried long ago. Will Patterson find who murdered the pilot before the killer leaves the island, and will Jane's curiosity put her life in danger? What evil lurks at Karluk Lake?




Rulebreaker


Book Description

Liv Braxton's Felon Rule #1: Don't get emotionally involved. Smash-and-grab thieving doesn't lend itself to getting chummy with the victims, and Liv hasn't met anyone on the mining colony of Nevarro worth knowing, anyway. So it's easy to follow her Rules. Until her ex, Tonio, shows up with an invitation to join him on the job of a lifetime. Until Zia Talbot, the woman she's supposed to deceive, turns Liv's expectations upside down in a way no woman ever has. Until corporate secrets turn deadly. But to make things work with Zia, Liv has to do more than break her Rules, and the stakes are higher than just a broken heart… 89,000 words