Ghost Light

Nathan Active Mystery #7

by Stan Jones, Patricia Watts

With the help of an Alaska Native grandmother suffering from dementia, Chukchi police chief Nathan Active hunts down the killer who hid a woman’s expertly dismembered body in the ice cellar of an abandoned Inupiat fish camp. The investigation pulls Active into a dark tangle of love and jealousy, even as he struggles with the PTSD that has haunted him since being wounded in a shootout in an earlier case.

The case starts when Tommie Leokuk’s husband brings her to Active’s office to show him what she found in her latest midnight ramble around the Arctic hamlet of Chukchi. From the pouch of her traditional atiqluk, she pulls a human jawbone with a single molar still in place.

Tommie’s dementia means she can’t explain where she found it. As her husband explains, “She lost her brain few years ago.”

At first, Chief Active doesn’t know whether she’s found a murder victim or an old grave opened by erosion or scavengers.
He soon discovers it’s very much a murder case, one of the most tangled he’s seen. The victim had two lovers, one male, one female. Both become suspects as the investigation proceeds.

At the same time, Active grapples with PTSD from being shot in a prior case. When he starts to wonder how his gun would taste, he realizes it’s time to see Chukchi’s tribal healer, Nelda Qivits, who believes anything can be cured by a cup of bitter sourdock tea in her little cabin on a back street of Chukchi.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction

258 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 26, 2021

About the author

Stan Jones is a writer of mystery novels, and is co-author of a non-fiction oral history book.

He has written seven books in the Nathan Active mystery series. He is also the co-author (with Sharon Bushell) of The Spill: An oral history of the Exxon Valdez disaster.

THE SAND GARDEN, installment No. 1 in his Dana Forsythe Mysteries was published in November 2023. It's based in the Palm Springs area and features a female private detective. Mary Wasche was his co-author on THE SAND GARDEN.

He was born in Anchorage, Alaska, where he lives today.

Reviews

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Since I was the first one to post that I read this new book on Goodreads, I thought a small review would be appropriate. There are semi spoilers here, so stop if you want.

This series is underrated. This new book is cleverly plotted with dueling texts making the one and only current murder a difficult and interesting one for Nathan Active to solve, all against the background of Alaska’s north.

The book advances through a combination of third party narrative and interior monologue, giving you a good view of Nathan Active’s life outside of detectiving, in a way that reminds me of Tony Hillerman and Anne Hillerman’s books.

Stan Jones added Patricia Watts as co-author a couple books ago, and I like the result.

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ghost Light is the 7th in the Nathan Active series set in Alaska, but the first one I've read. Nathan Active was adopted by a white family and raised in Anchorage, but in the first book, Active found himself back in the area where he was born as Police Chief, trying to fit in culturally with the Inuit community. (I may have to go back to the first book and read through the series.)

I liked the way this case was investigated and the way information had to be filtered as new information became available. The characters were also interesting, not just Chief Active, but the minor characters who are part of the community. The murderer is one of two options...but which one? I will check out the previous books at some point and get to know the characters better.

Purchased.
Mystery. Sept. 15, 2021. Print length: 258 pages.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chukchi police chief Nathan Active identifies the dismembered body found in an old ice cellar as a worker on the North Slope. So, the story involves a lot of travel to investigate both the victim and the suspects. Cowboy Decker is happy to oblige and readers get a glimpse of some interesting settings.

[Yvonne Panaro · Rating 5 out of 5]

great story

Those of you that have read a Stan Jones’ Nathan Active book will enjoy this one very much. Well written and a page turner. I have read them all and I truly wish there were more. I hope the two authors come up with another Nathan Active mystery soon.

[Cathy Cole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stan Jones' Nathan Active series has long been my favorite mystery series set in Alaska. Raised by white parents in Anchorage, Active's job with the Alaska Highway Patrol soon leads him to the small Inupiat village of Chukchi on Alaska's north coast where he is now Chief of Public Safety. The backbone of this series is its depiction of village life and how Active slowly becomes a part of it and of his heritage.

Now married and with a small child, Nathan finds monitoring Tommie Leokuk's midnight rambles a tough assignment, and I loved the solution one of his men came up with. When you live in a small indigenous village at the end of a very long food chain, you have to think smart because there's just no money available, and these "fixes" that everyone comes up with are just one way Chukchi village life feels so real.

Nathan's investigation leads him to the oil fields and a phrase that I wish would be erased from our vocabulary within my lifetime ("Boys will be boys") to the streets of Chukchi. The dead woman had two lovers, one male and one female, and Active almost wore a rut in the road being led in circles between the two suspects. This is a mystery where readers know one of two people did it, and they have to wade through all the lies to deduce which one is guilty.

Good-old fashioned armchair sleuthing in a hostile, fascinating environment that's brought to life by a master. If you're a reader, this is one of life's pleasures. If you're new to the series and want to give it a try, start at the beginning (White Sky Black Ice) so you won't miss all-important character development.