Hunter's Moon

May 3, 1999
Come along on a hunting trip from hell in the harrowing ninth entry of Stabenow's (Killing Grounds) Edgar Award-winning series set in the Alaskan bush. It's autumn in the foothills of the Alaska Range, bear and moose season. Kate Shugak and four other bush residents--including her lover, Jack Morgan--have signed on to guide big-game hunters. But the Alaskan guides respect the land and hunt primarily for meat, placing them at odds with their clients, who are usually more interested in bagging trophies to hang on their walls. George Perry, the pilot who runs Taiga Lodge ("taiga" is Athabascan for bear shit), doesn't like tourists any more than Kate does, but the money and the meat from the four weeks of hunting help them all survive the winter. Their latest party of hunters is worse than usual--a group of arrogant, rapacious German executives who blast Wagner on their boom box, expect everyone to wait on them and carry a mini-arsenal of expensive weapons. When one of them accidentally shoots his own personal assistant, Kate and the rest chalk it up to inexperience and tragic luck. Then another death occurs, and the guides begin to get suspicious; but they fail to recognize what these Germans are really hunting for until it's too late. Gripping and adrenaline-charged, punctuated with extreme violence, both natural and man-made, the plot gives its due to Ten Little Indians and "The Most Dangerous Game," but adds some surprising twists--all delivered with Stabenow's razor-sharp suspense and gritty prose.