“Alaska is … well, it’s just magical, ya know.”

If you haven’t heard of Marc Cameron or his series featuring Deputy U.S. Marshals Arliss Cutter and you love well-written Alaskan-set mysteries, you’ll want to do some investigating!

I love Cameron's work because he’s actually lived elements of his stories. He’s an Alaskan writing about a setting he knows well; he’s lived and worked there as a U.S. Marshal for most of his career.

Cameron is a master at showing, not telling. For those of us who cringe at over-explained scenarios and dislike being spoon-fed facts, Cameron offers us something exciting. For example, rather than telling us that Cutter’s partner tossed and turned at night, he writes “Lola Teariki must have slept like a crocodile doing death rolls.” I love the invitation to create Cameron’s narrative in my mind!

Cameron is a master at subtle humor. In this case, the names he gives his characters and inanimate objects made me smile. I smirked at a pot-bellied woodstove being named Nebuchadnezzar and about a bad guy on the run being named Pewee Halverson (sounds like Herman, right?).

Cameron is a master at recurring themes. Dead Line spotlights motherhood and how different woman approach their role. Mim, Ursula and Josie are so different in their outlook and in the value they place in caring for the young. Despite not liking the choices Ursula made, She was my favourite female character in this book and I was glad Cameron gave us more insight into her family.

Cameron is a master at making criminal justice and the extreme weather the focus of his narrative. Cameron knows how weather drives action because he lives it each day in Alaska. He knows about scheduling flights, checking out wind chill calculators, and why he would need to take the batteries from his electronic devices and place them next to his skin. He’ll tell you about how the freezing weather affects aviation, skiing, clothing choices/layering (and what FSO means), vehicle rubber tires, and our skin. He continually reminds readers that they are in ‘the Bush’ in Alaska. Setting is important to his stories and he makes sure you remember that fact.

Cameron always leaves readers with sound advice. This time it isn’t from Gumpy, but it’s worthy of copying into my journal.

“When we take a test and fail, the thing we think is the test isn’t the real test. The actual test is the way we handle the failure.”

I ALWAYS eagerly anticipate a Marc Cameron book. I hope you get to experience the same feeling one day soon.

I was gifted this copy by Kensington Publishing and NetGalley and was under no obligation to provide a review.