Brilliant read! I love Dana Stabenow's Kate Shuck books, but I am fast becoming just as keen on the Liam Campbell series. The Alaska setting is wonderful - the landscape and characters described beautifully - and Liam is a likeable hero.

Thank you to Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I automatically add any book written by Dana Stabenow to my TBR list. Her books are set in Alaska, a realistic Alaskan author if you will. I lived in interior Alaska for many years and I recognize the communities, the people and the challenges that Ms Stabenow includes in her books. Both Kate Shugak and Liam Campbell solve these mysteries using skills and knowledge learned the hard way. If you looking for some really good, unique, mysteries that just happen to be set in Alaska, look no further. Dana Stabenow is here.

Dana Stabenow is one of my favourite authors, I have read most of her Kate Shugak books and loved them.
I haven't read any of this series and although I enjoyed it I would have liked to start with the first book, that may be why I didn't enjoy it as much as I should have done. Will have to start at the beginning of the series I think, having said that it is a good read with a engaging plot and nice characterisation.

Good story with varied and interesting characters. A murder to solve which links with one from years before.As with all small towns there are many secrets and lies.

This book starts with the hint of something that has happened but then takes too long with the lead up to any real action, which starts about a third of the way through the book. From this point the story picks up and has a good pace and an interesting plot line although the ending wrapped up a little rapidly for my liking.

As usual I am late to the party having not read all the other books in this series. I have however read other books by this author, and I do like her writing style. I love the descriptions of Alaska it is somewhere that I would love to be able to visit and the amazing descriptions in this book really wet my appetite. I don't know if I will ever be lucky enough to go there but I certainly enjoy reading about it. This is however not a travel book, but a rather wonderful murder mystery. I really like the main characters and the description of some of the rather quirky residents, .really good to read and kept me page turning and guessing all the way through. I really enjoyed it.

Spoils of the Dead is the fifth instalment in the Liam Campbell series and is another richly-atmospheric and immersive thriller set in Alaska. Newenham is an ice-bound bush town with a six-bed jail, a busted ATM and a saloon that does double-duty as a courtroom. It's a wide-enough patch to warrant a state police presence, though, and Trooper Liam Campbell is it. Campbell has been exiled from Anchorage to Newenham in disgrace, busted down from sergeant to trooper in the aftermath of a mistake that cost a family of five their lives, to spend some time in the wilderness. Campbell didn't expect the job to be simple and it hasn't. From the (literally) cutthroat business of commercial fishing, to the paranoid misanthropy of the back-country prospector, to drug dealers, serial killers, and caches of forgotten war gold, he has had his hands full. Now he has a dead archaeologist, murdered at their own dig site, who claimed to be on the verge of a momentous discovery. Fans of the icy frontier, of mystery tinged with a frisson of romance, of laconic lawmen with good intentions, of tai chi and small aircraft piloting take note: Liam Campbell is for you.

This is a riveting, compulsive and thoroughly original thriller with a twisty and exciting plotline and an equally interesting cast of quirky characters. In fact, one of the biggest characters is the stunning, sparse Alaskan landscape and the descriptions that simply take your breath away; I was able to imagine myself there effortlessly without having ever been before purely from the author's delightful descriptions. It all makes for an entertaining and captivating read from the get-go and is packed full of action, emotion and red herrings, not to mention the surprisingly engaging tidbits related to archaeological digs and the painstaking process involved in them. Liam is swiftly becoming a multilayered character right before our eyes, and it was nice to see a softer side to him too but he's really feeling it after making the biggest mistake of his career and it costing a family their lives. An enthralling, exhilarating and thoroughly entertaining page-turner. I also enjoyed that the story was told solely from first-person perspective as it allows you to become immersed quickly and easily in everything that's going on as though you're experiencing it right alongside Liam. This series is something a little different and unique, so I hope the author will carry on writing it for many years to come. Highly recommended.

Trooper Liam Campbell has been exiled to a small town in Alaska. He is not fully welcome there either, and he's being told his jurisdiction is outside of town. Luckily, and a bit to his surprise, he has a local woman, Sally, helping him with the office work. A boy finds old bones, and when Liam checks it out he finds a fresh body there as well.

Set in the Alaskan wilderness you can feel the breeze and the open spaces. The book is more an steadily forward moving story than a suspense book. It is well written and an easy read. It takes a while setting the scene, and the story itself begins later than expected. In a book like this it does not bother me that much, since it gives the backstory, which I very much needed because I haven't read the previous books in the series.

I would like to get to know the town and its people better. I very much enjoyed the atmosphere and the slow pace of life. I would have liked to have a bit more suspense and the story to focus more on the mystery itself. The ending was given like a meal on a plate at a lunch cafe. i would have like to have to work on it a bit more myself. In general it's a good, entertaining read. 3,5 stars

Dana Stabenow is the author of the well known Alaskan Kate Shugak series, and this lesser known State Trooper Liam Campbell series too. If you are new to the series, this, the fifth in the series is fine to read as it provides so much of the requisite background of Campbell. Here, Campbell is located to the more populous and beautiful location of Blewestown, and has purchased a home for him and his wife and pilot, Wyanet 'Wy' Chouinard, about to join him after selling her profitable flying business in Newenham. There is a detailed and lengthy focus on the history and location, both through Campbell familiarising himself with the area, and through Wy's incoming flight as she explores far and wide in her plane.

To his surprise, Liam finds he has an aide to help him, the terrifying efficient Sally Petroff, a local whose inside knowledge of the town and its residents proves to be invaluable. He meets with local police chief, Sidney Armstrong, not exactly welcoming as he tells Liam that his jurisdiction is outside the town only. The judge warns him not to engage in heavy policing and ensure that the rights of any perpetrators are adhered to, which makes him wonder if this is a issue with the local police. Liam meets the archaeologist, Erik Bergland, who has unearthed artefacts that suggest possible evidence of historical indigenous trails that he wants to see preserved under UNESCO protection, a threat to certain local interests. When Erik is discovered murdered shortly after a party thrown by famous actor, Gabe McGuire, Liam finds himself plunged in a dual mystery that goes back 30 years when the skeleton of a murdered 10 year old boy is discovered at the same time, hidden in a cave, and shockingly both murders have the same MO.

This addition to the series is spent largely establishing Liam's new location of Blewestown and introducing the new cast of locals, including a lively and colourful elderly dementia suffering resident of Sunshine Heights that both Wy and Liam take to their hearts. This is not a fast paced read, but I was enthralled by the Alaskan location, and getting to know some of the residents as Liam investigated them as potential suspects. Fans of Stabenow and this series are likely to find this an entertaining and engaging crime read as they catch up with the latest developments in the lives of Campbell and Wy. Many thanks to Head of Zeus for an ARC.

Lots of atmosphere, a clearly evident love for Alaska pervades every book the author writes. Spoils of the Dead was a slow enough starter, and I felt like it took a long time to get into the meat of the mystery. It's entertaining, and interesting characters, but not outstanding.