Killing Grounds

Kate Shugak, Book 8

By: Dana Stabenow

Narrated by: Marguerite Gavin

It's fishing season, and Kate Shugak is working with Old Sam aboard the fish tender Freya when Cal Meany floats up dead. His reputation as a womanizer, strike breaker, and abusive father ensures that there are several suspects, multiple motives, and quite possibly more than one murderer. While Kate investigates the killing, her aunties mend nets, operate an illegal fish camp, and impart cultural wisdom to Jack and his son Johnny. Ultimately, Kate finds herself in grave danger, as even her aunts join the list of suspects.

©1998 Dana Stabenow (P)2012 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

Too much cliff-hanging...

Where does Killing Grounds rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

There's an awful lot of cliff-hanger scenes and the Monopoly game thread seems a bit forced, but Stabenow is becoming one of my favorite authors. It's probably in the top 2-3% of my many reads.

What about Marguerite Gavin’s performance did you like?

She's an excellent narrator for Stabenow's books.

This one wasn’t near as good overall

The start was very slow and kinda boring. I usually love all the details & pictures she paints as she writes. However, this one I knew from almost the beginning the character that was going to do something bad or have something bad done to him. It wasn’t until the last hour and a half that really interesting things started happening. The first half of the book was really a 3 at most but the last of the book was it’s usual 5. Great narration by Marguerite Gavin.

Alaska's salmon season is the perfect backdrop.

As I have said in some of my other reviews for this series, I love Stabenow's use of the state of Alaska, the description of its people and the land, the exploration of Aleut history, culture and government. I like Kate very much. I like the supporting cast very much. I like Alaska even more. In these books, it has become a very real, very odd, very quirky, and very appealing place. I have grown to love Alaska and all the craziness that comes with living there. In this book we find ourselves embroiled in the difficult, backbreaking work of salmon fishing. The setting is essential to the mystery which is lovely as it allows the story to flow from the circumstances. It is never jarring. This installment, and Breakup, are my two favorites of the series thus far.

Loved this book

As always, I enjoyed the story telling. I love the characters and their interactions. I am absolutely a devoted Dana Stabenow fan. Marguerite has a lovely engaging voice and manner.

Kate's one of my Favs

I really love these, every one of them. They're good stories with great characters, but having them on audible is a real treat. Margureite Gavin does a bang up job narrating them.