Sue Henry, Murder at Five Finger Light

Murder at Five Finger Light

Sue Henry

NAL, Apr 2005, $23.95, 288 pp.

ISBN: 0451213971

Sled dog racer Jessie Arnold feels the world is looking up as she rebounds from knee surgery, recovers from a DEATH TRAP, and is back with her beloved State Trooper Alex Jensen. Jessie accepts an invitation to a paint party thrown by close friends Laurie and Jim Trevino, who are renovating a fixer-upper Five Finger Lighthouse on Alaska's Inner Passage; Alex has a meeting that he must attend so he cannot accompany Jessie, but tells her to have a good time.

Thinking this will be fun though hard work, Jessie goes. However, the idyllic gala of paint and panorama ends when Jessie finds the corpse of another guest. Assuming a tragic accident occurred, Jessie changes her mind when she tries to call for help by phone and radio; neither work as a killer has severed the lines with the objective to snuff the life out of the party one death at a time.

The latest Sue Henry Alaska mystery will remind readers of Agatha Christie's classic Ten Little Indians. The storyline is action-packed once Jessie stumbles over a dead body and never slows down as the sleuth realizes a murderer is amongst the guests. The scenery, as usual, is breathtaking, but it is the cat and mouse game between the culprit and the detective that will have the audience spellbound.

Harriet Klausner