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A review by realadhdoug
A Night Too Dark by Dana Stabenow
3.25
This was my first Dana Stabenow book, and I’ve got two more in the Kate Shugak series I’m still going to read since I already purchased them. I decided to try these because I loved the narration work by Marguerite Gavin that I’ve heard from other authors. And, to be clear, the narration of this audiobook was just as good as I suspected. There was a lot of dialogue in this book across several different characters and Marguerite really brought them to life. So, I want to say off the bat that I appreciated that.
I also wanted to say that I enjoyed the mystery well enough in this story. Lots of door knocking, interviewing suspects, chasing leads, that sort of thing. And it’s a “who’s behind it” as much as it is a “whodunnit.” There’s an overachieving political conflict between the gold mining lobby and the environmental lobby, and I appreciated how it depicted the interests of both sides fairly rather than making a caricature of one or the other. So, there’s that.
Where this book fell short for me was that it just seemed overly descriptive of the Alaskan landscape and history of the people and organizations involved in the story. It felt like I was reading a history book or a Wikipedia page at times. And even though I liked the mystery, the pacing was slow and I lost interest so many times throughout the course of the book.
Finally, I thought the secondary characters were lively and fun, but the main character was completely flat. I left this book not really caring for Kate Shugak. I don’t feel I understand her motivations or personal background or really anything other than “she went here, she did this, then this happened.” There are like 20-something books in this series so hopefully this is a fluke. It was okay but, if you’re going to try a Kate Shugak book for the first time, I wouldn’t start with this one.
I also wanted to say that I enjoyed the mystery well enough in this story. Lots of door knocking, interviewing suspects, chasing leads, that sort of thing. And it’s a “who’s behind it” as much as it is a “whodunnit.” There’s an overachieving political conflict between the gold mining lobby and the environmental lobby, and I appreciated how it depicted the interests of both sides fairly rather than making a caricature of one or the other. So, there’s that.
Where this book fell short for me was that it just seemed overly descriptive of the Alaskan landscape and history of the people and organizations involved in the story. It felt like I was reading a history book or a Wikipedia page at times. And even though I liked the mystery, the pacing was slow and I lost interest so many times throughout the course of the book.
Finally, I thought the secondary characters were lively and fun, but the main character was completely flat. I left this book not really caring for Kate Shugak. I don’t feel I understand her motivations or personal background or really anything other than “she went here, she did this, then this happened.” There are like 20-something books in this series so hopefully this is a fluke. It was okay but, if you’re going to try a Kate Shugak book for the first time, I wouldn’t start with this one.