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In her acknowledgements Stabenow says that she had problems with ''telling'' rather than ''showing'' before the book was edited and I don't think they were entirely cleared up. I've always been impressed by her ability to cut straight to the heart of the story but this time I'll confess to finding the opening just a little ''tedious'' with rather too much in the way of long- and short-term history. As a new reader this might well stand you in good stead, but I think you'd also find keeping up with the who's who and from where just a little difficult - and made even more confusing by the names of the two villages being so similar. If you've read part of the series I'd advise keeping the books in order - I kept suffering 'oh, no, So and So is ''dead''' moments.
When I looked closely at the book cover of my review copy I realised that the name 'Kate Shugak' wasn't mentioned - anywhere, although it does seem to have been 'badged' on sale copies. Kate does take more of a backseat in this story which really centres on Jim Chopin and I did wonder if this might be the way that the series moves forward. Once we got into the story proper it moves along at a fine pace with plenty of red herrings and there's a finale which left me unable to sleep afterwards. I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to the Bookbag.
If you are planning on reading this book you might like to delay until you've read at least a few of the earlier books. It's no hardship, I promise and you'd do best to start with [[A Cold Day for Murder (A Kate Shugak Investigation) by Dana Stabenow|A Cold Day for Murder]].