A Taint in the Blood: A Kate Shugak Novel

Rating:
Summary: I'm baaack
Review: After the death of Jack, I was not too thrilled with this series, it seemed as if the author killed him off so her heroine could be "free", and frankly I thought the author took the easy way out - but this book finds me back in her camp again. It was a great read, an insight into the history of Alaska and a fun subplot with Jim Chopin. My only problem now is I find myself reading the last page, not to find out who-done-it, but to make sure Mutt is still alive. As a dog lover myself, I really enjoy the way that the author portrays the rapport between Kate and Mutt, but I am so afraid one of these times Mutt is going to catch a bullet, and I don't know if I could come back after that!!!

Rating:
Summary: Perfect for a winter afternoon
Review: As a long-time fan of Dana Stabenow and her heroine, Kate Shugak, I was happy to go along on another adventure. Stabenow has added a lighter touch, opening with some snapshots of Kate's excessive helpfulness. And it was fun to follow Kate around Anchorage, which the author knows well. Alaska is magnificent in summer and the author captures the feeling well.

The plot isn't bad. A wealthy woman pays Kate a huge (unspecified) sum of money to get her mother out of jail after 30 years. The mother needs medical treatment and the daughter is afraid she'll die in prison. Kate investigates systematically, calling in favors from all over, and soon realizes several parts of the story are unexplained.

There are a few odd steps in her detection, such as her decision to have dinner with an influential wealthy suspect. The solution seems plausible but not obvious and the cover-up and the explanation seems a little more tangled than it might be. The obligatory climax with real physical danger seems a little forced but easy to read and enjoyable to follow.

However, I have to agree with other reviewers. Stabenow gives us too many steamy (or pseudo-steamy) sex scenes, where she moves to the viewpoint of Chopper Jim. Some of his reactions seem more appropriate to an inexperienced teenager, not a middle-aged ladies' man. We can already guess that Kate would be fantastic as a sex partner because she's so athletic and in touch with her body. We don't need the details, down to her underwear. Given that Kate is a dignified woman who commands more respect than liking, I feel that we're invading her privacy.

And because the tale has been set in Anchorage, we don't get to revisit Johnny and the Park rats. That's understandable: in any series, the author has to move us away so we won't get bored with the same old scenes.

Finally, I lived in Alaska in 1989-1991. Every year Alaska gets more and more like "Outside," so I can see where Stabenow has to stretch to give us a sense of place. But I hope she does. Kate's home must be very different than when the series started. I'd like to learn more.

Rating:
Summary: Series moving toward less authenticity?
Review: I have read all the Kate Shugak series as well as the other mysteries Dana Stabenow authored. I have enjoyed the Alaskan wilderness, how Kate lived in her one-room cottage during the winter without electricity and plumbing, and all the local small-town characters; as well as the fascinating plots and settings: on a fishing boat, at a glacier, dealing with 'break-up' and drunkeness and family abuse in the Alaskan wilderness in the winter. I especially thought her scene of Kate's keening at the death of her lover, Jack, in an earlier novel was powerfully drawn, and so was the quality of their relationship leading up to that scene. Kate's relationship to Jack's ingenuous son, Johnny, is always compelling.

Three or so of the usually brilliant and sensitive Stabenow's books back I was taken aback in one novel at the sudden offering of badly-written sex scenes: in-your-face, unsubtle, prolific and lacking in eroticism; they occurred throughout the book; so much that I have repressed the title and even the plot or whether it was a Shugak or other Stabenow series book (although I think it was not a Kate book).

In general A Taint in the Blood was worth the read, because it was a continuation of a story I was familiar with, but was not compelling in several ways: At the beginning the writing is erratic in quality (it evens out soon). The introduction comes off as unlike what one would expect in a Kate Shugak novel, using glib statements in a list to describe Kate's reaction (irrational guilt expressed in a patronizing need to help everyone who helped her) to the new house her neighbors and friends built and paid for for her. I felt someone besides the usual author had written it and I almost put it down or sent it back.

In this book the Kate I was familiar with has metamorphosed into someone who is part her and part somebody else: a cavalier, immature caricature of a movie type we are overly familiar with: the old-fashioned bimbo. The bad-sex scenes are plentiful here and Kate is the one who performs them; there are three places in which she 'runs her tongue across her lower lip' or flutters her eyelashes, and she acts overtly seductive to try to get information from a suspect (which doesn't work anyway). She is trying to 'get' her man, Jim, throughout the book by using sex, sex, sex and there is virtually no talking between them about the relationship. He, for his part, is terrified of getting close to anyone and we have no clues to why; or to why this method of Kate's, getting him in the sack and then acting as if she doesn't care if she sees him again, is going to work. (And, by the way, what happens when they get there? That might have been interesting, but I don't recommend that this author try it; otherwise, why do they keep going back to 'it'.) The man, Jim, here, is a relative cypher. The idea that a woman can get her man by using his own (love 'em and leave 'em) tactics lacks 'gravitas'. I have forgotten what drew Kate to Jim Chopin in the first place in previous books and the author doesn't remind us in this one. When Jim resists and finally decides to stop the relationship entirely we have no clue to Kate's feelings about this though she seems to have gotten in pretty deep emotionally. Her consistent confidence that he will give in and that she doesn't need to protect her own vulnerability at all is unbelievable.

I have seen series authors succumb to thinking they can 'write it in my sleep', give it over to a ghostwriter or just lose their way due to going through a hard time that year -- it usually is obvious. As well, sometimes writers think readers don't grow along with them and continue to try to fit a larger, well-padded foot into the same pat shoe; they demean their readers thus because their writing becomes talking down to them/us (a certain imagined age group/demographic?)and is of necessity inauthentic.

I not only missed the usual characters, Kate's adopted son
Johnny (who shows up briefly at the start), but Aunti Vi, Sam Dementieff (sp?), Bobby and his family and the rest, as well as the backdrop of the locale of Niniltna -- the novel is set in the big city, sophisticated, corrupt old-moneyed family circles of Anchorage this time -- but I was left having not really gone anywhere, learned much of anything new or gotten out of myself and experienced someone else's reality. I certainly didn't want to go where Kate was going in this one.-- Kate seems to be another person altogether. She has lost her 'nativeness', her groundedness and her authentic core, virtually everything that drew me to her in the first place.
There is a cavalierness that pervades this book, includng sometimes in Kate's relationship to her half-dog/half-wolf best-friend, Mutt. The one place I found myself hoping to hear of again after they were introduced in this book and was not disappointed was an incidental meeting of two runaway young brothers whom Kate befriends and helps. (Funnily enough Jim has no connection to these boys, though he is a cop, and it is this kind of lapse that makes me wonder what she sees in him.)

I liked reading about what Kate serves the brothers for breakfast and what she cooks for herself. I also liked learning in detail about how someone in the Bush buys foodstuffs and other necessities in large quantities for the winter and 'palettes' them for shipment on a cargo plane to a middle-warehouse which will save them in Niniltna for her return. Thinking about it now, I guess the Anchorage upper-class shallow, corrupt characters are so much in evidence in the randomly-chosen movie one finds on television that it made me long for Niniltna, the reason I read these books of Stabenow's.

But, too much, throughout, cavalierness supplants heart.

Basically, the sex scenes are lacking and distracting --
I miss 'my' character, Kate, who evidences none of the depth of maturity and sensitivity she had gained from her deep and real experiences of love and loss in previous books. And, though the author has worked hard on the place of Anchorage and the plot there is some of her past spark missing. Hey, I miss this author!

Rating:
Summary: Confusing, But Lots of Fun Anyway
Review: I never met a Kate Shugak novel I didn't like, and A Taint in the Blood is no exception, even though I have to admit that I found the plot a bit convoluted and got confused more than once about who was doing what to whom and why.

No matter. This outing finds Kate in Anchorage, where she has been called upon to solve a 30-year-old murder that took place in a patrician Alaskan family with many politically important connections all the way to the top. Charlotte Muravieff writes Kate a check she cannot refuse, and tells her to clear her mother Victoria, in jail all these years for supposedly setting the fire that killed one son and permanently injured another. Kate is sure that Victoria did in fact set the fire, but reluctantly agrees to take on the case.

While in Anchorage, Kate's nosing around leads to all kinds of strange and scary happenings, including murder, that would scare off the average PI, but just make Kate more anxious to get to the bottom of the mystery. And while she's at it, she turns up the flames under her torrid romance with Chopper Jim the Gorgeous Trooper. Warning to the faint-hearted: Stabenow is quite bawdy and bold with her descriptions in this book, so if that is not your cup of tea, better skip this one. I thought it added a great deal of amusement and romantic intrigue to the story!

Mutt is back as her superhero self, and there are enough local characters to fit the bill, as we have come to expect in any Shugak novel. I'm not going to say I even understand how the mystery ended, but I loved the book anyway. A good, fun, fast and satisfying read.




Rating:
Summary: Worth the read just for Chopper Jim
Review: I was devasated when Jack died but the interplay between Kate and Chopper Jim has been something to watch and this book is all about what is or is not budding between them. Kate has recovered enough to actively play Jim and she does so throughout the novel. The mystery is good, there are several trails that could lead to the answer but you've got a pretty good idea where it might eventually lead. The new character of the old cop is really terrific and lots of fun to watch, he's sort of Jim many years hence. I miss the park people in this book but again, this book is Jim and Kate and a side of Kate we haven't seen that much of. Can't wait for the next step to see where it does lead.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I've always been a big fan of Kate Shugak novels, however, I was disappointed with this one. I got the feeling that Stabenow was not putting as much effort into her recent books, or perhaps she has just run out of steam. It was uncreative, boring, and uninteresting. I didn't feel that the characters were going anywhere. Altogether an extremely disapointing read from one of my favorite authors.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Kate Shugak has gone from the tough as nails woman we liked and admired to an urban tease. Her blatant admission of trying to drive Joe crazy with her sexual prowess is sluttish. That is not the Kate we knew and respected. She is now interchangable with dozens of other female main characters. Very disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: Author (and Editor): Please Keep Your Facts Straight
Review: Let me make it clear that I truly enjoy Dana Stabenow's novels about the tough and sexy Alaska PI Kate Shugak. But I really get annoyed when authors forget what they've written a few pages ago, and their book editors fail to catch the screwups. A couple of crime books ago, the killer's weapon metamorphosed from a shotgun to a rifle in 10 pages. In "A Taint in the Blood," Stabenow has really done the impossible. On page 12, a potential client has driven "a royal purple Cadillac Escalade" to Shugak's new house in the Bush. By page 23, when the client is leaving, the vehicle has been transformed into a monster Ford SUV. Jeez!

Rating:
Summary: A great tale by one of this genre's most talented writers
Review: One of the best reasons to read current mysteries is Dana Stabenow, a wonderfully talented and entertaining author who brings to each book fascinating stories, offers an enthusiasm for her home in Alaska, has created captivating characters, and still knows how to make familiar folks seem interesting. I've watched Kate Shugak deal with people, with crisis, with love and with tragedy throughout this series.

In this story, the 14th in this never-disappointing series, things are going well for Shugak --- perhaps too well. She's so grateful that folks in the Park built her a new home (after hers burned down) that people are starting to avoid her, just to get away from her helpfulness. She's being way too helpful and cheerful, and it's awful. A change of scene is due, and when Charlotte Muravieff, a woman from a powerful family, comes and says, "My mother is dying, I want her out of prison," Shugak takes on the case --- a bit reluctantly, of course, because what exactly can one learn from a 30-year-old murder conviction?

Kate is facing a number of problems. The mother never once proclaimed her innocence in the horrific crime of which she was ultimately convicted: that of setting fire to the family home and killing one of her sons (the other was injured but survived). Victoria has no interest in cooperating with Kate's investigation; many other players, including powerful politicians, seem to have a remarkable interest in Kate's work here.

State trooper Jim Chopin, a Park legend and resident hunk whom we've watched over the years, is around to help Kate in Anchorage --- and he is determined not to be in love with her. He has known her for years and lusted after her, but has never told a woman "I love you," especially a monogamous, determined one like Kate. Hah. Good luck.

I admit to feeling slightly uncomfortable at times watching Kate being coy and flirtatious. She also seems a little too perfect at times; she's a wise and smart woman, so I don't expect her to make big mistakes. But perhaps she's a tad too sure of herself. I also admit that I wondered very early on who Victoria was covering for; that's not a giveaway of the plot --- most of us would wonder --- but it's another sign that maybe I read too many mystery novels.

I also miss Johnny Morgan in this tale. Understandably, as it takes place in Anchorage rather than at Kate's home in the Park, he can't be around, but he's a cool kid and at times helps explain things in his clear, adolescent "seen it all" way. Here's a young man whose mother hates him and whose father, Kate's lover, is dead; his insights into people are refreshing because there's little sentiment about him (something I think he learned from Kate).

But nothing, certainly not these minor carps, takes away from the major strengths of A TAINT IN THE BLOOD, told by one of mystery fiction's most talented and creative storytellers.

--- Reviewed by Andi Shechter ([e-mail])

Rating:
Summary: Stabenow's Kate Shugak series remains fresh and engaging
Review: The latest Kate Shugak mystery begins on a humorous note, as an overzealous Kate, eager to repay her friends for favors performed in 2003's A Grave Denied, becomes an annoyance to everyone she knows. Thus, her friends breathe a sigh of relief when she becomes preoccupied with a new client, Charlotte Bannister Muravieff. A member of a wealthy Alaskan family, Muravieff wants Kate to gather evidence to help clear her mother, Victoria, who was imprisoned for the murder of her son William some thirty years prior. Unable to turn down the large fee the woman offers, Kate begins her investigation of what she quickly realizes is no ordinary cold case.

Fourteen installments in, Stabenow's Kate Shugak series remains fresh and engaging. Shugak is an impressive leading lady, an aggressive, capable, tough as nails heroine who somehow also manages to endear herself to most everyone she encounters. Stabenow has also created an impressive supporting cast for Kate to interact with, from her sage uncle Old Sam, to her lovable dog Mutt, to her romantic conquest, the increasingly enamored lawman Jim Chopin. All bring out different sides of Stabenow's multifaceted protagonist, as well as providing frequent comic relief.

It's a winning mix, one that's only enhanced by the intriguing mysteries Stabenow has concocted for Kate over the years. If you haven't experienced the charms of this series as yet, A Taint in the Blood is as good a place as any to start.