On her first flight out from Bethel, she is forced by bad weather to make an emergency landing at Quinhagak. There she is greeted by a young woman, who identifies herself as Cathy, a village public health aide. Cathy thinks Taylor is the medevac she has sent for to transport a seriously injured man to Bethel. At first, Taylor refuses to fly because the weather conditions are so poor. But Cathy convinces her that the patient will die unless he is transported to a hospital immediately. Taylor agrees to try, but immediately regrets her decision, fearing that she will crash the plane and kill not one, but three people. Somehow by doing things that are definitely against proper flight procedure, she manages to get the plane safely back to Bethel.

En route, Taylor learns from Cathy that the man they are transporting was injured in a brawl fueled by alcohol. The village is dry, but someone is obviously selling liquor to the Indians. As other incidents involving alcohol occur in other dry villages, Taylor goes to the local police for help. They show no interest in undertaking an investigation, so Taylor decides to look into the situation herself.

Although the plot is not particularly complicated, Red Line does not suffer from lack of action. In the opening chapter, the reader can easily imagine sitting beside Taylor in the small plane while she struggles to land it safely. Then knowing that the weather conditions are such that there is no way her plane can fly, she decides to attempt another flight. I wanted to scream at her that she was foolish and would kill herself and her passengers.

Knowledgeable readers will certainly enjoy the author's description of the techniques involved in flying small aircraft. Since I know virtually nothing about this subject, a lot of information was incomprehensible to me, but I did manage to learn a bit in the most general sense. The author has the ability to maintain the interest of the clueless (like me) while imparting some pretty technical information.

The descriptions of Alaska are awesome. Although I am a card carrying cold weather hater, Rust has the ability to paint with words such a beautiful picture of the wilderness, she has made me eager to visit the area. However, to be practical, I think I'd go in the summer.

Obviously, the author is familiar with adjustments that have to be made when living in a cold climate. For instance, Taylor breathes out of the side of her mouth when she drives her car to prevent condensation from freezing on the inside of the windshield. In another situation, someone explains that houses are built on stilts not from danger of flooding, but because of the permafrost. If they are built directly on permafrost the weight of the house will thaw the permafrost and make the floors buckle.

If you are looking for complex plotting or clever solutions, Red Line is probably not your cup of tea. However Red Line contains plenty of drama and enough interesting information about Alaska and flying small aircraft under adverse circumstances to provide a very enjoyable story. Not having read the first in the series, I will probably have to find a copy and add it to my growing pile of "to be read" books.

--Andy Plonka