December 12, 2011
Finn Grant’s death in the crash of his small plane in an apparent act of sabotage raises the question: who would want the self-made billionaire dead? About half the population of southwest Alaska, as Kate Shugak discovers when she goes undercover as a barmaid in bestseller Stabenow’s entertaining 19th novel featuring the brash, fearless PI (after 2011’s Though Not Dead). Kate’s shrewd and ceaseless prying reveals that the unsavory Grant was involved in blackmail, mail fraud, and embezzlement, all connected to Alaska’s many small airlines. Kate has a casual approach to evidence gathering, and her skill at breaking and entering finds her eventually thrown into a chest freezer, tossed into a Dumpster, and locked inside a freight container while her stalwart and highly intelligent companion, Mutt, who’s half-wolf, half-husky, provides assistance. Readers new to the series may be mystified by the many references to past episodes. Yet the book sparkles with energy and wit, and packs an unexpected punch. 100,000 first printing; author tour. Agent: Danny Baror.
February 4, 1991
The abrupt raising of the Iron Curtain, it would appear, has released a thousand intriguing ghosts from the past and given the spy novel a whole new lease on life. If Finder's fiction debut doesn't outdo Frederick Forsyth in grace of style, it surpasses both Forsyth and Ludlum in density of mystery and swirl of action. At the same time--not entirely surprisingly, coming from the author of Red Carpet, a study of the intricate connections between the Kremlin and U.S. big business--the plot is crammed with and even a little overwhelmed by details regarding the darker side of Soviet history and the workings of Soviet and U.S. intelligence. Assigned to examine a portentous tape sneaked out of Moscow by a mole, CIA Kremlinologist Charlie Stone finds himself in an espionage investigation of staggering complexity. As he hops among three continents, often the target of both the KGB and the CIA, Stone succeeds in vindicating his father, branded a traitor by McCarthy, while nosing out a plot by the head of the KGB to stage a violent coup during a Moscow summit that will end glasnost and set the world on its ear. The story contains as many chases, murders, conspiracies and uncloseted ghosts as any thriller maven could want, as well as a credible love interest; in all, it's a superbly exciting read. 75,000 first printing; $75,000 ad/promo.