It sounded again, nearer this time. Her eyes groped for it in the dusky twilight, and after a moment there it was, six inches long, light brown with darker streaks on its plump body and a golden one on its head. It perched at the end of an insubstantial alder twig, swaying a little as it cocked its head, looking at Kate alternately from each bright eye.
The song sounded again, Spring is here, here is spring. That was its job, to usher in spring in song. That was what it had been made for, what it was best at. It might dream of being an eagle, soaring, aloof, detached, but it was the spring-is-here bird, and it sang the news from the branch of an alder.
Kate let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. “All right, Emaa.”
She got to her feet, and in a flutter of wings the sparrow was gone. “I love you, Emaa,” Kate said, raising her voice. “I miss you.”
Mutt trotted ahead. Kate paused, shotgun cradled in the crook of one arm, and looked over her shoulder at the fading outline of the mountains, the lambent glow of the rising moon.
“I need you,” she said, almost whispering the words.
Her only answer was the song again, three notes, coming clearly over the wind in the trees, the howl of a distant wolf, the drip of melting snow.
It was enough.
It would have to be.
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About Dana Stabenow
DANA STABENOW was born in Anchorage, Alaska and raised on a 75-foot salmon fishing boat in the Gulf of Alaska. Her mother was a deckhand and she and Dana spent nearly five years living on board. For the next three decades, Dana refused to eat salmon.
Dana received a BA in Journalism from the University of Alaska, toured the world with a backpack discovering English pubs, German beer and Irish men, before returning to Alaska to work for BP at Prudhoe Bay, inside the Arctic Circle. Knowing that there must be a warmer job out there, she gave it all up to become a writer. In 1991, the first Kate Shugak Mystery, A Cold Day for Murder, won the Edgar Award for the Best Paperback Novel and her first thriller, Blindfold Game, hit the New York Times bestseller list
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About the Kate Shugak Series
Kate Shugak is a native Aleut with a touch of Russian heritage working as a private investigator in Alaska. She’s 5 foot 1 inch tall, carries a scar that runs from ear to ear across her throat and owns a half-wolf, half-husky named Mutt. Orphaned at eight years old, Kate grew up to be resourceful, strong willed and defiant. She is tougher than your average heroine – and she needs to be to survive the worst the Alaskan wilds can throw at her.
Kate used to work as an investigator for the Anchorage DA’s office but after her throat was slashed while saving a child, she resigned from her job, and returned to the log cabin her father built on her tribe’s native lands, deep in Alaska’s largest national park in the shadow of the Quilak Mountains.
For fourteen months Kate remained in the wilderness – her voice cut down to a raspy growl by the jagged scar stretched across her neck. Then, during the worst winter on record, a congressman’s son disappeared... Two weeks later, the DA’s investigator sent to find him was also reported missing. The FBI turned to the one person they knew had the skills to track down the missing men in the depths of an Alaskan winter. This is where you’ll meet Kate in book one, A Cold Day for Murder.
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Liam Campbell Mysteries
Fire and Ice
So Sure of Death
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Better to Rest
Star Svensdotter
Second Star
A Handful of Stars
Red Planet Run
Others
Blindfold Game
Prepared for Rage
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First published in the United States in 1997 by G.P. Putnam’s Sons
The first digital edition (v1.3) was published in 2011 by Gere Donovan Press.
This eBook edition first published in the UK in 2018 by Head of Zeus Ltd
Copyright © Dana Stabenow, 1997
The moral right of Dana Stabenow to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN (E) 9781788549042
Jacket design and illustration by Ghost
Maps by Dr. Cherie Northon, www.mapmakers.com
Author photo: Chris Arend, www.chrisarendphoto.com
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