Cutter’s deft use of a rock draws out a hulking fugitive from Nevada named Twig Ripley. Twig’s arrest goes badly for him when he hits a police dog with a crowbar.
Cutter has come to Alaska to help his widowed sister-in-law, Mim, with her twin 7 year old boys, Michael and Mathew, and her 15 year old daughter, Constance. Ordinarily he resembles his taciturn grandfather who was nicknamed Grumpy. With his nephews and niece his personality lightens. Cutter is professionally successful and a multiple failure at marriage.
As the story proceeds a darkness in Cutter’s psyche festers.
When a handwritten, badly spelled, threat is sent to Federal Court Judge, J. Anthony Markham, Cutter and Teariki are assigned to accompany the judge to Stone Cross five hundred miles from Anchorage. The independent, oft imperious judge, grudgingly accepts their presence. Their official assignment is to enforce a warrant for the most minor of charges, public urination in a national park.
The Yup’ik people of Stone Cross, mostly Russian Orthodox believers, await the judge who will be deciding ownership of a valuable spit of land by the airport.
Birdie Pingayak’s life is a mixture of the traditional and current lifestyles. She has a chin tattoo following her maternal ancestors. She has gone to university and is principal, at 31, of the local school. She is a wonderful character who has faced great adversity in her life.
Life in bush Alaska is hard. Isolation, poverty, harsh weather and a demanding landscape are too much for many urban dwellers who come to work there. Violence is common.
Cutter and Teariki learn the threat reaches back decades and involves Markham as a young government lawyer. There is significant complexity involving Yup’ik people and the white establishment.
While at the village the Marshalls are drawn into a murky murder and abduction from a fishing lodge.
There is a remarkable chase in the wilderness involving dogsleds during a blizzard. I could feel the wind and cold I have experienced in a Saskatchewan storm. I was reminded of the dog sled race in Murder in a Cold Climate by Scott Young in which Inspector Matthew "Matteesie" Kitogitak of the RCMP engages in a dog sled search in the Northwest Territories of Canada. Each pursuit was dramatic and a reminder of the history of the North.
It should have been no surprise, since he is a fugitive hunter, but I was caught off-guard at Cutter’s skill in tracking. He can deduce a great deal from a careful examination of the ground.
As I started the book I thought it might follow the pattern of many American mystery thrillers with a double digit body count, little subtlety and a predictable ending. I was wrong.
Stone Cross blends a strong mystery with an unflinching look at life in rural Alaska. While the book is set in southwest Alaska I was reminded of the Nathan Active novels by Stan Jones set on the northwest coast of Alaska in another indigenous village. I want to read more of Arliss Cutter.
