The next morning Aana’s teenage grandson, Justin, out for his morning track practice, stops at Aana’s home to say hello as he often does. Finding her door wide open, he senses something is seriously wrong. Calling to his grandmother as he enters the house, he receives no answer and cannot find her. He does, however, notices a smear of what appears to be blood on the kitchen floor, and a scrap of fabric from her dress stuck in a door jamb. Understandably, Justin panics, runs to the nearby home of his Uncle Ray, who is the police officer in charge of the region, as well as being the nephew of Aana Clearwater.

When Ray and Justin return to the house, the scene is somewhat altered. The door is now shut. There is no evidence of blood clearly visible. The scrap of fabric is no longer wedged in the doorjamb. Ray knows Justin is a reliable kid and doesn’t question his description of the house as he originally saw it. The fact remains that Aana Clearwater is missing, and is likely to be seriously injured or dead. The search for Aana’s killer/ abductor becomes for Ray as much a personal vendetta to apprehend the person who attacked his aunt as an attempt to keep peace in this usually quiet settlement.

With the number of new mystery books in print increasing at a rapid rate, it is difficult for authors to come up with a unique tale either by virtue of plot or setting. A number of authors have chosen Alaska as a setting for their stories, but Christopher Lane has elected to place his tale in the bleakest part of our forty-ninth state. While mentioning several times the severity of the climate... “a spot on the globe where the land gave up and relinquished itself to the sovereign rule of water and ice. “ “The only things native to Barrow were ice, snow, dirt, and whales... what possessed {people} to settle on the North Slope of Alaska.”

While, the author’s descriptive powers pale in comparison to Dana Stabenow or Sue Henry, he does make an attempt to introduce the reader to the indigenous language of the region by interspersing native words in the text (glossary included). However, using this method to produce native flavor may come short of the mark. The meaning of the native words is not readily apparent from the context, so the reader must flip to the glossary to grasp the meaning of the sentence. I now know how a young child feels when he tries to read a book above his reading level. While, it can be done, some of the enjoyment is lost because the flow of the story is interrupted.

The plot itself is a moderately interesting diversion for a few quiet evenings. Why would someone murder an old woman, who had no hidden store of riches, and was likely to die relatively soon of natural causes? She was not known as a busybody who might have discovered some impropriety, and was actually one of the few older folks who kept the native traditions alive. Also, why hide the body?

As the story unfolds it will become apparent to most readers who committed the crime and why, but there are a few complications, which make the solution a little less straightforward than it initially seems.

The only really interesting character is police officer Ray Attla. Ray has enough inner conflicts which plague him to spark the interest of most readers. The supporting cast of characters are one dimensional and stereotypical. The author does get a little too melodramatic and overemotional in the final scenes as Ray is thrown into freezing water and dreams he is confronting mythical beings.

Silent as the Hunter is an enjoyable enough book that I didn’t have to force myself to finish it. However, I do not feel compelled to search for other books in the series.

--Andy Plonka