Book Review #1: 'A Cold Day For Murder'

I don't write many book reviews (as you may have noticed from the post title) but I thought I would start to give a few a go.  I have to admit my variation in genre is fairly limited as I mostly read crime thrillers and courtroom dramas, though I'm hoping to adventure out of this shortly as I work my way through my enormous wishlist of books.

The first review I'm going to write is for A Cold Day For Murder (Kate Shugak #1) by Dana Stabenow

Here's the official blurb:

Somewhere in the hinterlands of Alaska, among the millions of sprawling acres that comprise 'The Park' a young National Park Ranger has gone missing. When the detective sent after him also vanishes, the Anchorage DA's department must turn to their reluctant former investigator, Kate Shugak. Shugak knows The Park because she's of The Park, an Aleut who left her home village of Niniltna to persue education, a career, and the righting of wrongs. Kate's search for the missing men will take her from the self-imposed exile back to a life she'd left behind, and face-to-face with people and problems she'd hoped never to confront again.


I have to be honest, when I first started reading this I almost gave up before I even started. I'm all for scene building but there was something that I just couldn't relate to and the writer's style was not working for me. However I have an agreement with myself that I always have to give a book a fair chance so stuck with it and I'm glad I did as I eventually got used to the style. Unfortunately there was quite a bit of jargon used with no explanation which would often slow me up a bit. However the book did lack a depth of plot, not much more information ever came out but rather repeated itself several times. I also guessed 'whodunnit' which means it was fairly obvious because despite reading a lot of crime thriller type books, I am terrible at guessing :D

All in all a good descriptive book of Alaska but all in all not enough of a mystery and the plot was rushed to the end. I'm glad I tackled something set somewhere different but I'm pretty sure I'll not be buying any more in the series.