Henry, Sue: Death Trap

Book cover excerpt:
No author on the crime fiction scene brings the beauty, mystery, majesty, and danger of the Alaskan frontier mor vibrantly alive than critically acclaimed award winner Sue Henry. Now she takes us due north once more tothis rugged land that famed "musher" and sometime sleuth Jessie Arnold calls home---a breathtaking world where the summers are brief and winters, like death, are cold and long.

With August drawing to a close, Jessie Arnold is feeling empty. Not even the return of a friend can lessen her disappointment over having to miss the approaching Alaskan dogsled racing season because of her recent knee surger. But a request to help man the Iditarod booth at the Alaska State Fair is a godsend, something that keeps Jessie involved and happy...until a corpse turns up on the fairgrounds.

The murder is an expecially brutal one: a small-time hoodlum dispatched by a double-blade axe blow to the skull. Though she has already seen too much death in her lifetime, Jessie becomes a participant in the proceedings when her beloved lead sled dog, Tank, vanishes. Angry and sick with worry, she sets out to find him and unwittingly discovers connections that link Tank's disappearance to the murder and a recent theft in bizarre and disturbing ways.

Friends new and old are soon involved as well. Musher Lynn Ehlers, the parents of a local boy, and state troopers are plunged into a desperate and harrowing search that leads them across lush forested valleys, up silent, forbidding mountains, and into Alaska's darkest heart. Because, suddenly, a sled dog is not the only missing player in this drama. Under alarming circumstances, Jessie Arnold has also vanished.

Quotes:
p.11
From somewhere close a raven called from high above her head but, though she carefully inspected the treetops, remained a disembodied sound. Three times it broke the stillness of the woods with its ragged croak before taking flight, a soaring black silhouette against the thin cloud cover of the sky. Hearing the raven reminded Jessie that, according to legend, this trickster of the northern world had once had a lovely singing voice and pure white feathers but had lost them both in flames cast by an angry magician from whom it had craftily stolen the sun, moon, and stars. The heat had charred it black and left it with only the scorched croak; one of the many raven tales that always made her smile.
p. 11
For over an hour, the three enjoyed the freedom of the woods. Slowly the overcast cleared and sunshine brightened and warmed the morning with long shafts of light that splashed down through the canopy of the branches. Jessie's mood lifted, and she found herself humming in wordless appreciation of the world around her. It was good sometimes to wander slowly along and notice the many small things that would soon be buried in snow. On a sled, behind a dog team, they all vanished in a blur of speed. Fall was her favorite season, and it was pleasat to have time to enjoy it, even if that gratification was the result of losing her usual training runs.
p. 48
....We learn guilt early, at our mother's knee, so doing what is expected of us is houw we tend to fit into society with the least amount of conflict. But I thought of all the things in my life that I'd done because they were expected of me, and the mental pile of shoulds and ought-tos grew until it was a mountain compared to my want-tos. Should and ought-to was what go t me pigeonholed in that unlockable room in the first place, wasn't it? All at once it seemed insufferable. I'd escaped successfully and made it to the fair. So I decided, for once, to do what I wanted. Therefore I didn't go back."
p. 62
...I had decided that I valued my freedom more than my dignity. What is dignity anyway but a facade for others? When you're by yourself it matters very little. Think about the way you behave when you're alone compared to your public persona. Besides, the more you enjoy living freely, the less you need dignity as a shield, because you stop making assuptions about what others may thing of you.
p.100
The black alpaca had been recently sheared, escept for its tail and the top of its head. The other had been left fluffy with white fleece so soft it seemed unreal when Jessie put a hand between the bars of the pen to touch it. The animal had a shaggy fringe of black on top of its head that hung down in front, almost obscuring its vision. But it was the huge eyes of the animals that attracted her. With no definition between pupil, iris, or sclera, they were so completely dark that i t ws difficult to tell where the alpacas were looking. Framed with incredibly long lashes, their eyes reminded Jessie of still pools of water that gleamed with reflections on the surface but kept the secrets of their depths. So calm and slow-moving they seemed almost sleepy, the two animals stood staring into the distance beyond those who stopped to admire them, but she had a feeling that their enigmatic liquid eyes missed very little of what went on around them.

I really enjoyed this book. There were moments of humor thrown in here and there that it made for a nice break in a stream of unpleasantness. The addition to Frank and Danny really was a joyful change of pace.

I could feel Jessie's despair and anxiety over Tanks disappearance and fate throughout the story. The bond between the two is palpable and wonderful. More people should feel as close to their "pets", as well as to their family and children. So much of the news nowadays is how disposable life is and how it is valued less in less and replaced by greed, fear and ignorance, as well as just plain cruelty. This is reflected in the book as well.

Oh yeah, Maxie McNabb makes an appearance in this book as well! And the return of an old friend of Jessie's!