Don Porter Deadly Detail

Deadly Detail

Don Porter

Poisoned Pen, Sep 2005, $25.95, 314 pp.

ISBN: 1590581911

While the pipeline is under construction, flying customers to Fairbanks enables bush pilot Alex Price the opportunity to spend some time with his former prospecting partner Stan and his friend's Athabascan wife Angie. However, Stan asks Alex to meet him in town without his spouse because he is worried about a threat by an unknown assailant who thinks he overheard something; ironically he did not hear anything. They meet at the local, but depart for privacy heading towards Stan's pick-up truck. A bar girl stops Alex while Stan turns on the ignition; the vehicle explodes.

Stunned Alex goes to comfort Angie. Not long after his arrival two cops come on the scene, but instead of breaking the news of Alex's death, they start shooting at the grieving pair. Alex and Angie manage to escape by canoe, but the killers give chase. Alex knows they need time to learn what the criminals think Stan overheard if they are to confront the employers of the assassin chasing after them, but first they must elude their adversaries in the stark frozen Alaskan tundra.

Though this is Alaska and Hitchcock's North by Northwest uses cornfields and climaxes at Rushmore, this fine thriller will remind readers of that excellent movie because of the innocent hero falling into a deadly situation and also the massive backdrops. The storyline is superb as Alex and Angie must first find safety to regroup and figure out what is going on and how to act on this. Readers will take immense delight wondering what ironically Stan did not hear that killed him.

Harriet Klausner