NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY by Dana Stabenow

NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY by Dana Stabenow
A Liam Campbell Mystery
Dutton/Plume - Sept 2000 Hardback
ISBN: 0525945598
Suspense / Anthropological

Reviewed by Sue Bartroff, MyShelf.com
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At first glimpse, this is the kinder, gentler Dana Stabenow. Her three books (including this one) featuring Alaska State Trooper Liam Campbell and the light of his life, Wyanet Chounard initially appear not to have the angst of her Kate Shugak works.

These books, like all the intricate, compelling works of Dana Stabenow are about love and loss. They effortlessly seam together the rocky transition of the native American tribes of Alaska into the oil and tourist driven present and future of Alaska with the loss of the traditional way of life, the loss of individual freedoms, the loss of hope for many who had relied on the strong traditions of village life to sustain them.

Along the way, we find love in all its forms growing in spite of the harshness of life. And with love at times comes despair. The carefully crafted and deliberately paced murders that tie her books together are sharp highlights to the real story of ordinary and extraordinary people who struggle to find what happiness they can along the rocky course of day to day existence.

Wy is a pilot with an adopted native son whom she has rescued from an extremely abusive mother. Liam has been reduced in rank and sent to this remote village as punishment for errors made by men under his command. When Wy starts finding bodies on her regular mail deliveries to the outlying homesteads; Liam begins an investigation that will bring closure to the disappearance of many women over the last fifteen years and may tear the fragile trust and caring between the two apart forever.

It is almost impossible to classify this book. It's not a police procedural; it's not really romantic suspense. Like all of her books, Nothing Gold Can Stay defies categorizing and pulls on the mind and heart long after the last page is read.