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Nothing Gold Can Stay

by Dana Stabenow

Nothing Gold Can Stay is a Liam Campbell book, one of the three series Dana Stabenow writes featuring Liam, Kate Shugak, and Star Svendotter. Since Ms. Stabenow lives in Alaska herself, she writes most knowledgeably about that far north, wilderness wild state with its glaciers, everlasting daylight in season, and endless stretches where no man or woman has ever set foot. My only previous connection with Dana Stabenow was when I read one of her recent Kate Shugak novels, also about Alaska. Nothing Gold Can Stay is equally powerful. In both series you are transported directly to an overwhelmingly vast wilderness filled with all of nature's creatures – including humankind – some easy to live with and some not. In Alaska, as everywhere else on the globe, evil exists. Just because talented writers like Dana Stabenow choose to fictionalize some of that evil doesn't mean it's not there!

It's September in Alaska. Liam Campbell is a member of the Alaska State Troopers. His girlfriend,Wyanet Chouinard (Wy) pilots a small plane. Among Wy's duties is the mail run she makes several times a month to the wilderness outposts where many residents have their cabins – some only for the summer, others all year round. When the novel begins, Liam is sleeping in his truck in Wy's driveway, since her adopted son Tim is home and ready to go to school after Labor Day.

Opal Nunapitchuk acts as the Postmistress for Kagati Lake, one of the wilderness outposts. On this day in September, most of the villagers are away at the fish camp, expecting the salmon who will eventually make it north to where they wait. A ragged, hairy stranger enters Opal's store – he has a shotgun on his back. That in itself is no big deal, since almost everyone in the wilds of Alaska travels with a firearm. But this man is different. And Opal realizes it too late.

Bill (a female who owns a bar) is a peace officer, and Liam brings her Amelia Gearhart – a councilor's wife at seventeen, caught driving while drunk. Again. Amelia is constantly beaten by her husband and has taken refuge in alcohol. Moses Alakuyak is present when Liam brings Amelia in. Moses is Bill's hybrid lover – and as proud of his mixed blood as he is of his relationship with Bill. Prince – another female (why does Ms. Stabenow provide most of her women with male-sounding names?) is an officer helping Liam. Tim's birth mother, another drunk who initially slapped Tim around, has secured a court order from a sympathetic judge to allow her to visit Tim. To get around what could be an explosive situation, Bill, Moses, Tim and Amelia take off for their own private fish camp in the Alaskan wilderness.

Wy discovers Opal's body when she's out making her mail deliveries, and summons Liam. The stranger not only killed Opal, but had robbed her of everything valuable as well. Presumably this was at least one of the situations prompting Dana Stabenow to use her title for the novel…

Mark and Rebecca Hanover are summering out the season at the site of a placer gold mine Mark has bought. Rebecca is less than enthusiastic about living in the rough, but she's willing to stick it out for her husband's sake. She believes it's only for the summer, after all. Rebecca is unaware that Mark plans to stay (perhaps the other reason for the book's title). Then a strange, hairy man kills Mark and kidnaps her – taking Rebecca to a beautifully constructed cabin hidden deep in the woods. He keeps calling her his Elaine

Everyone thinks Rebecca is responsible for her husband's murder, since she's disappeared after he was discovered dead. And it's not until she escapes and the Hairy Man follows her to Bill and Moses' fish camp that things begin to fall into place. It seems the Hairy Man has killed more than two people – and bringing him to justice, never mind discovering his actual name – is as
difficult to prove as his sanity.

In Nothing Gold Can Stay, Dana Stabenow once more proves her ability to construct a fascinating, edge-of-the-seat, riveting tale. Ms. Stabenow is a decided star in the mystery heavens, and her Edgar awards validate that fact. Even if someone else had the background and the talent possessed by this author, I doubt if they would be able to convey the vast loneliness of her state to us as well as she does! By all means, add this author to your list of musts.

Alan Paul Curtis

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