Cold Company: An Alaska Mystery - Hardcover

Henry, Sue

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0380978822 ISBN 13: 9780380978823

Publisher: William Morrow, 2002

Synopsis

Multiple award-winning author Sue Henry once again carries us into the heart of America's last frontier with a gripping tale of suspense set in a land whose rugged, exquisite beauty appeals to the adventurous and strong...and to those who are drawn to darkness.

Cold Company

The summer solstice is near -- bringing long sunlit days to the Alaskan wilderness -- and for famed musher Jessie Arnold, the time has come to put the past behind her and move on. Building a new home for herself and her sled dogs on the charred ashes of her old one, she plans to be finished well before the onset of the long northern winter. But her progress is halted -- chilling Jessie to the bone -- when the excavations unearth a skeleton entombed in a crumbling basement wall.

Twenty years earlier, a serial killer brutally murdered a number of women in the area. One of the fiend's victims disappeared wearing a butterfly pendant -- a necklace similar, if not identical, to one discovered with the grisly human remains. A grim nightmare believed to be long over must now be revisited or, worse still, has been reborn. Because, once again, a local woman has disappeared without a trace.

And, once again, Jessie is being pulled into a murder investigation against her will. Red roses are being sent to her anonymously -- the gifts of a secret admirer who may also be a stone-cold killer. In this stark and lonely place, in the first days of the all-too-brief Alaskan summer, the signs suggest the unthinkable: An insatiable human monster has returned...and Jessie Arnold may well be his next victim.

In what is perhaps her most unforgettable novel to date, the incomparable Sue Henry weaves a spellbinding tale of past sins and present-day evils, of humanity at its best and worst, and nature at its most powerful.

About this title

About the Author

Sue Henry, whose award-winning Alaska mysteries have received the highest praise from readers and critics alike, has lived in Alaska for almost thirty years, and brings history, Alaskan lore, and the majestic beauty of the vast landscape to her mysteries. Based in Anchorage, she is currently at work on the next book in this series.

From Publishers Weekly

Alaskan musher Jessie Arnold has certainly used up more than nine lives even before the start of this ninth solid adventure in a series that has won both Anthony and Macavity awards. Fiercely independent and self-reliant to a fault, Jessie must confront inner fears as well as outside dangers as she sets about rebuilding her home (gutted in 2000's Beneath the Ashes) and restructuring her life (after a breakup that occurred in the same novel). First a skeleton turns up in the excavation of her new cabin site; then a possible link is found to murders committed decades earlier by Alaska's most notorious serial killer, Robert Hansen. Hansen's victims, some of whom were never found, had been buried along the nearby Knik River. Soon not only the cabin construction crew but forensic and police investigators, plus a relative of one of Hansen's victims still searching for answers, are prowling the wild and remote Knik Road that leads to Jesse's property. As murders new and old begin to unfold, Jesse has to learn to rely on others as well as on her own substantial survival skills to surmount human and natural pitfalls. One of the hallmarks of Henry's series is the beautiful and rugged Alaskan landscape, and she has never used it more effectively than she does here, as spring sets in motion new discoveries. And Jesse's continuing voyage of self-discovery should thrill old fans as well as expand her growing audience in the lower 48.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: William Morrow
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0380978822
• ISBN 13: 9780380978823
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 294