Though Not Dead (Kate Shugak Series #18) » (First Edition)

DANA STABENOW, a New York Times bestselling author and Edgar Award winner, has written sixteen Kate Shugak mysteries, four Liam Campbell mysteries, three science fiction novels, and two thrillers (Prepared for Rage and Blindfold Game, available from St. Martin’s Press). Also an acclaimed columnist for Alaska magazine, she lives in Anchorage, Alaska, where she was born and raised.

Visit her Web site at: www.stabenow.com

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.

Publishers Weekly

The demise of 89-year-old Samuel "Old Sam" Dementieff, Kate Shugak's friend, relative, and mentor, triggers a deadly treasure hunt in Edgar-winner Stabenow's brilliant 18th novel to feature the feisty Alaska detective (after 2010's A Night Too Dark). Through flashbacks, Stabenow covers key events in Sam's life and Alaska's history, from the devastating flu epidemic of 1918 to the state's newest and biggest gold mine, the Suulutaq. Sam's service during WWII in the real-life army unit known as Castner's Cutthroats, his meeting Dashiell Hammett in the Aleutians, and his surprising romances--all are foundation and prelude to the search for a missing Russian icon, a manuscript possibly penned by Hammett, and a monstrous gold nugget. Kate is at her butt-kicking best as she and Mutt, her inseparable half-wolf, half-husky companion, deal with murder, theft, and deception from Anchorage to the wilderness of Canyon Hot Springs, where Old Sam staked his homestead. Author tour. (Feb.)