Works by
Dana Stabenow
(Writer)
[March 27, 1952 - ]

As Editor

• Unusual Suspects: Stories of Mystery and Fantasy (December, 2008)
  Includes "A Woman's Work" (a Mnemosynea short story)

• At the Scene of the Crime: Forensic Mysteries from Today's Best Writers (2008)
  Includes  "On the Evidence" (a Liam Campbell short story)

• Powers of Detection: Stories of Mystery and Fantasy (2004)
  Includes "Justice is a Two-Edged Sword" (a Mnemosynea short story)

• Wild Crimes (2004)
  Includes "Wreck Rights"  (a Kate Shugak short story)

• Alaska Women Write: Living, Loving, and Laughing on the Last Frontier (2003)
  Includes "The Gift," an essay about her being on-board a fish tender in the Gulf of Alaska.

• The Mysterious North (2002)
  Includes "Cheechako" (s short story)

Fiction

Kate Shugak Series
Kate Shugak is an Aleut who lives on a 160-acre homestead in a generic national Park in Alaska. Her roommate is a half-wolf, half-husky dog named Mutt. Her nearest neighbors are a bull moose and a grizzly sow. Farther off are dog mushers, miners, hunters, trappers, fishermen, bush pilots, pipeline workers, Park rats and Park rangers, other Aleuts, Athabascans, a few Tlingits and the residents of Niniltna, a village perched on the edge of the Kanuyaq River, a 600-mile long, salmon-rich tributary that winds through the Park to Prince William Sound.

1. A Cold Day for Murder (1992) -- Winner 1993 Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original
   When a National Park ranger is reported missing and the man sent to find him disappears as well, former investigator Kate Shugak decides to brave the cold wilderness of north Alaska to crack the case.

2. A Fatal Thaw (1992)
   When a man goes berserk on the first day of spring and kills nine people, Kate Shugak, once the star of the Anchorage D.A.'s office, begins an investigation. 

3. Dead in the Water (1993)
   Attorney Kate Shugak gets an undercover job working on an Alaskan fishing boat in order to discover why two crew members mysteriously disappeared.

4. A Cold-Blooded Business (1994)
   A string of drug-related accidents at an oil company's rig in the Arctic Circle forces Kate Shugak to go undercover to scope out a cocaine connection along the TransAlaskan Pipeline.

5. Play With Fire (1995)
   Former D.A. investigator Kate Shugak gets caught up in a case involving a corpse she finds in the Alaskan woodlands, leading her to an isolated religious settlement and onto a trail of twisted lies, secrets, and suspicions.

6. Blood Will Tell (1996)
   At the request of her grandmother, a matriarch of her Aleut clan, Kate Shugak travels to Anchorage to investigate the mysterious deaths of several Council members just before a crucial meeting to determine the fate of some disputed tribal lands.

7. Breakup (1997)
   It’s breakup, or spring in Alaska, that time of year when the snow melts and the bears wake up. One of those bears kills someone — or does it? — and Kate isn’t looking for the killer, or so she says. The rest of the Park rats know better.

8. Killing Grounds (1998)
   If it’s summer, it must be fishing season and Kate, working as a deckhand on Old Sam Dementieff’s tender Freya, finds a body in the water. It’s a fisherman who has been beaten, stabbed, strangled and drowned, and state trooper Jim Chopin drafts her into helping discover the reasons behind this overkill.

9. Hunter’s Moon (1999)
   It's September and the height of hunting season in the bush. Experienced hunter Kate and her boyfriend, Jack, volunteer to help out their friend and big-game outfitter George Perry with a hunting trip. But while they kill to pack their freezers, this wealthy group of German computer executives wants trophies to hang on their walls. The conflict of interest doesn't end there; used to pampering, the group has a style that clashes with Kate's self-sufficient ways.
   
   After successfully bagging a moose with two of her charges, Kate returns to camp to learn that a hunter has been shot. It appears to be an accident, until the body of a second hunter is discovered in even more gruesome circumstances. With no shortage of potential suspects, Kate realizes the moose and the bears aren't the only animals being hunted in the bush.
   
   In a plot that combines elements of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None and Richard Connell's The Most Dangerous Game, in a setting as perilous as it is beautiful, with a cast of characters as rich and full as any in detective fiction today, Dana Stabenow weaves a story that will test the limits of Kate's strength, ingenuity, and determination, and will ultimately change the course of her life forever.

10. Midnight Come Again (2000)
    Reeling from the shocking murder that shattered her world, private investigator Kate Shugak has vanished into the vast Alaskan wilderness just when Jim Chopin needs her most. The dauntless Alaska State Trooper is ensnared in an intricate case involving the Russian Mafia and a cache of stolen plutonium--a case that will launch him on a treacherous solo undercover FBI assignment in the far western reaches of Bering. Only when he arrives in the remote coastal settlement does an astonished Jim discover that he isn't the only one who's gone incognito...Seeking solace in a new name, a new appearance, and a new life, Kate puts in eighteen-hour days handling freight for an independent airline. Yet not even the backbreaking labor provides adequate diversion from her inconsolable grief-nor does Jim's unexpected appearance...at first. Kate and Jim soon find themselves drawn headlong into a case that is far more twisted, and dangerous, than either of them ever could have suspected as it soon becomes violently clear that the theft that launched their investigation is only the tip of the iceberg...

11. The Singing of the Dead (2001)
    Kate hires onto the staff of a political campaign to work security for a Native woman running for state senator. The candidate has been receiving anonymous threats, and Kate, who went to college with two of the staffers, is to become her shadow, watching the crowds at rallies and fund-raisers. But just as she's getting started, the campaign is rocked by the murder of their staff researcher. In order to track the killer, Kate will have to retrace the researcher's steps and delve into the past, in particular the grisly murder of a "good-time girl" during the Klondike Gold Rush of 1915. Little can she guess the impact a ninety-year-old unsolved case could have on a modern-day psychotic killer...

12. A Fine and Bitter Snow (2002)
    Change never comes easy so when the news breaks that the new administration oil might be drilling for oil soon in a wildlife preserve in southeastern Alaska, home to P.I. Kate Shugak, battle lines are quickly drawn across the community. But for Kate, who hasn't been able to get back into her daily life ever since her lover's violent death a few months ago, it's a welcome reprieve from doing nothing.
    
    Tensions run high when Kate's friend and chief park ranger, Dan O'Brien, is deemed "too green" for them by management and asked to take early retirement. Kate rallies the troops to fight for his job, but before she can really start throwing her weight around, a longtime resident is found brutally murdered. Alaska State Trooper Jim Chopin enlists Kate in the investigation, and it isn't long before she discovers that when it comes to the beauty and danger of living and dying in Alaska, nothing is as simple as it seems...

13. A Grave Denied (2003)
    Everyone knew Len Dreyer, a handyman for hire in the Park near Niniltna, Alaska, but no one knew anything else about him. Even Kate Shugak, who was planning to ask him to help build a small second cabin on her property, knew him. But she, the Park's unofficial P.I., seems to have known less about him than anyone.
    
    When Len Dreyer's body is discovered, frozen solid, in the path of a receding glacier with a hole from a shotgun blast in his chest, no one even noticed that he was missing for months. Alaska State Trooper Jim Chopin asks Kate to help him dig into Dreyer's background, in the hope of finding some motive for his murder. She takes the case, mindful of the need for gainful employment as she copes with her responsibility for Johnny, the teenage boy in her care and a constant reminder of his father, her dead lover. Little does she imagine that by trying to provide for him she just might put him right in the path of danger.

14. A Taint in the Blood (2004)
    In Dana Stabenow's latest novel, a woman hires Aleutian P.I. Kate Shugak to clear her mother's name. Twenty years ago, the mother was convicted of arson and murder, of setting fire to the family home while her two sons were inside. One died, and one was maimed. Her daughter has always believed in her innocence, though the mother herself had accepted the verdict and the life sentence without protest. Now the mother is terminally ill, and her daughter wants her free. But as Kate begins the investigation, it seems the mother isn't the only one who wants to leave the past in the past.

15. A Deeper Sleep (2007)
    Kate Shugak, a private investigator, has been working on a case for the Anchorage District Attorney involving the murder of a young woman by her husband, a man named Louis Deem. Deem has been the subject of investigations before, and he’s never been convicted of a crime. But Kate and her on-again, off-again lover, state trooper Jim Chopin, who arrested Deem, are convinced that this time it’s different—and he’ll finally be punished for his actions.
    
    When the jury returns a verdict of not guilty, Kate, Jim, and citizens of Niniltna, Alaska, believe Deem has gotten away with murder. And when, a few weeks later, two people turn up dead after an apparent robbery, Kate and Jim can’t help but believe that Deem is involved…but what it takes to bring Deem to justice could tear them apart—if the real killer doesn’t get to them first.

• Conspiracy
  A mini Kate Shugak short story, set immediately following the events of A Deeper Sleep ... read at Dana Stabenow's  (click here).

16. Whisper to the Blood (2009)
    Inside Alaska’s biggest national park, around the town of Niniltna, a gold mining company has started buying up land. The residents of the Park are uneasy. “But gold is up to nine hundred dollars an ounce” is the refrain of Talia Macleod, the popular Alaskan skiing champ the company has hired to improve their relations with Alaskans and pave the way for the mine’s expansion. And she promises much-needed jobs to the locals.
    
    But before she can make her way to every village in the area to present her case at town meetings and village breakfasts, there are two brutal murders, including that of a long-standing mine opponent. The investigation into those deaths falls to Trooper Jim Chopin and, as usual, he needs Kate to help him get to the heart of the matter.
    
    Between those deaths and a series of attacks on snowmobilers up the Kanuyaq River, not to mention the still-open homicide of Park villain Louis Deem last year, part-time P.I. and newly elected chairman of the Niniltna Native Association Kate Shugak has her hands very much full.

17. A Night Too Dark (2010)
    In Alaska, somebody disappears every day. Hunters who head into the wilderness… Fishermen who brave the great rivers…Tourists who attempt to do both. In Aleut detective Kate Shugak’s Park, people have been falling off the grid quite a bit lately. And as she and state trooper Jim Chopin are about to realize, it’s got something to do with the recent discovery of the world’s second-largest gold mine in their very own backyard.
    
    A hostile environmental activist organization has embraced Alaska’s Suulutaq Mine as its reason for being, attracting more attention than many of the locals can tolerate. So it’s almost a relief when Kate finally finds a body—this, more than politics, she can handle. Until the identity of the body vanishes, too… Now it’s up to Kate and Jim to dig deeper into the mining controversy and find the truth about what’s going on in her homeland. Even if that means facing down an enemy who will kill to keep certain secrets buried…

18. Though Not Dead (February 1, 2011 release)
    In the newest entry in Dana Stabenow’s New York Times bestselling Kate Shugak series, Kate and the rest of the Park rats are stunned by the death of Old Sam, Kate’s eighty-seven-year-old uncle and foster father. In his will, he leaves almost everything to Kate, including a homestead deep in gold mining country that no one knew he had and a letter that reads simply, “Find my father.”
    
    Easier said than done, since Sam’s father is something of a mystery: an outsider who disappeared shortly after learning about Sam’s existence, he took with him a priceless tribal artifact, a Russian icon. During the first three days of Kate’s search, she gets shot at, whacked in the head, and run off the road in deep snow and left for dead.
    
    Interspersed with flashbacks from Sam’s fascinating life, including scenes from major events in Alaskan history, Kate does her best to fulfill Sam’s last wish—as various people follow her every move, in search of the icon, Old Sam’s gold, or possibly some other secret remnant of his long, mysterious life.

1. Fire and Ice (1998) -- Library Journal as Best Mystery of 1998
   Broken in rank and transferred in disgrace, Alaska state trooper Liam Campbell arrives at his new posting in Newenham on Bristol Bay to find lost love and bush pilot Wyanet Chouinard crouched over the body of Bob DeCreft, who may or may not have been murdered with the propeller of her Piper Super Cub.

2. So Sure of Death (1999)
   Fishing vessel Marybethia is adrift and afire, and Alaska State Trooper Liam Campbell arrives on the scene to find the bodies of a local family of fishers and crew. Was it accident or foul play? All the characters from Fire and Ice are back and in full fighting form, Bush pilot Wy Chouinard, bartender/magistrate Bill Billingham, drunk shaman Moses Alakuyak, and Wy's adopted son Tim Gosuk, along with newly arrived Trooper Diana Prince and Liam's father, Air Force Colonel Charles Campbell, for an adventure Booklist called "as good as it gets."

3. Nothing Gold Can Stay (2000)
   Shocked by a series of brutal, unexplainable murders, Alaska State Trooper Liam Campbell embarks on a desperate journey into the heart of the Alaskan Bush country-in search of the terrible, earth-shattering truth...

4. Better to Rest (2002)
   Just when his personal life starts to heat up, Liam Campbell must put it on hold...after the grisly discovery of a dismembered hand leads him to a crashed World War II Army plane frozen precariously in a glacier. Stretching back more than sixty years, the case will pit Liam against his Air Force colonel father, whose very presence makes Liam question what secrets the glacier holds-and who exactly was on that ill-fated flight...

5. Bones out of the Grave (2010 release)

Star Svensdotter Series

1. Second Star (1991)
   Earth's first space colony is overrun by spacepirates, politicians and saboteurs. One person dedicates her life to keeping her beloved colony safe: Esther "Star" Svensdotter. She's dealt with all kinds of human troublemakers, but the rules change when the colony receives its first contact from aliens.

2. A Handful of Stars (1992)
   From an Edgar-winning author comes the sequel to Second Star. After pouring five years of her life into Earth's most ambitious space colony, Star Svensdotter sets out with a small crew to make the fortune of the new nation. They won't be stopped--not by plague, insurrection, nor blood feud.

3. Red Planet Run (1995)
   Star’s twins have made the Asteroid Belt too hot to hold them and Charlie keeps trying to get Star laid, so when Star is offered a commission to survey the fabled ruins of Cydonia on Mars she jumps at the chance. This is not a tourist cruise, though, as space pirates are on the prowl and a mysterious obelisk may finally explain why no expedition to the Red Planet has ever been heard from again.

Stand Alone

• Silk and Song (In progress)

• Prepared for Rage (2008)
  A terrorist filled with resentment…an FBI analyst challenged to be three steps ahead of the intelligence…a Coast Guard captain assigned to keep watch on that very American of symbols from the water…an astronaut who takes her job very seriously…
  
  The paths of all of these characters converge on one clear morning in Florida. NASA is preparing to launch the space shuttle—this time with a high-paying visitor on board as a guest, and the FBI and the Coast Guard are doing everything they can to help the launch go off without a hitch. But one Pakistani man with a bottomless personal grudge and the commitment of many zealous men behind him is determined to strike back at the most visible target he can find…

• Blindfold Game (2006)
  In Thailand, two men hire some modern-day pirates to hijack a Russian freighter. It is appallingly easy and the ship sails, undetected, toward the western coast of North America. On the Bering Sea, the USS Sojourner Truth, a Coast Guard cutter, patrols the Maritime Boundary Line. The seasoned crew, dealing with a high volume of ocean-going traffic, is finding that choppy seas are making their efforts even more difficult. In Washington DC, a CIA analyst traces the sale of black market plutonium. As the pieces fit together, he realizes that a terrorist attack is under way on a valuable-and vulnerable-American target. He also sees that the Sojourner Truth is sailing right into the attack-putting his estranged wife, the second in command on the Sojourner, at the heart of an international crisis.