http://bactra.org/weblog/algae-2022-03.html#stabenow ( )

Kate Shugak is enlisted by management to determine how drugs are getting to Alaskan pipeline workers. Overcoming her aversion to this affront to nature, she finds she likes to camraderie and meets a former ambulance worker, who is under the spell of a syren. ( )

⭐⭐ = It was ok.

I had a lot of problems with reading this book, and the accumulation of them has left me uninterested in continuing the series.

Kate's motives for doing things are all over the place and everything — when looked at critically — fails to elevate the plot from mediocre to good or help the characters grow. ( )

Kate Shugak is hired to go undecover to find out who is supplying illicit drugs to the workers at an oil company's base at Prudhoe Bay on the North Slope.

We find out who the bad guys are about 2/3 of the way through the book, up to which point the author is just immersing us in life up past the Arctic Circle, and she does a very good job of it, too. The obligatory scenes of danger and violence followed by the wrap-up and epilogue were competently done but didn't really provide as much of a thrill or emotional satisfaction as they could have. ( )

Another very good novel in the series by Stabenow. Marguerite Gavin is the narrator, and she is very good also.
4 stars, and recommended. ( )