“The Arctic trails have their secret tales That would make your blood run cold.” -Robert W. Service, “The Cremation of Sam McGee” Jack Mabie claims to be the meanest man in Alaska, yet the old sourdough seems to be just one of the crusty geezers in every roadhouse bewildered by how his lawless frontier life has morphed into the pastel 1950s world of martini cocktail bars up and down Fairbanks’ … up and down Fairbanks’ Second Avenue.
Sonia Petrievich, an editor at The Gold, her father Hank’s weekly pro-statehood paper, learns through the mukluk telegraph about Jack’s gleeful account of murders and robberies and shell games during the gold rush days. Her breezy March 1957 profile lets Jack revel in newfound notoriety.
Edna Ferber, not completely satisfied with her forthcoming novel Ice Palace, has just returned for further research and is fascinated by Jack and his wild tales. Plus the previous summer, young Athabascan lawyer Noah West, a war hero and Sonia’s lover, bent on bettering the lives of Alaskan Natives, had sharpened Edna’s sense of a corner of the territory she’d ignored: “I felt I’d lost sight of the real Alaska, the heartless icebox in the North, the blank-eyed old-timers still haunted by gold… I’d forgotten Alaska is still frontier…a violent, mysterious world below the glossy skin I’d written about.”
When Jack is found beaten to death, Noah becomes a suspect. Two violent deaths follow. Edna, Noah’s advocate, decides she needs to clear his name, believing the murders are connected. As debates over potential statehood rage, Edna begins unearthing scandals and sordid stories hidden in Fairbanks but also dating back to village life in Fort Yukon and down into the Lower 48.
What horrible secrets carried from the Arctic Circle have led to so many murders? And what novelist could stand aside from this story?
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“Run Cold,” the latest Edna Ferber mystery by Ed Ifkovic, is filled with extraordinary characters and a sense of place that will be remembered long after the last page is finished.
The year is 1958. Miss Ferber has written “Ice Palace,” her fictional retelling of Alaska pioneers in the years following World War I. Not published yet, though. She’s returned to Fairbanks, to visit and recharge. Alaska is still a territory; there are opponents within the would-be state and in the American congress. Big, sprawling Alaska, caught between the present and the knowledge of a lawless past. Still frontier, still rough, with parts that wouldn’t show up in a guidebook, then or now. Harsh and unforgiving (the author elaborates on this throughout the book). Edna is there to follow up on “loose ends, haunting stories, and unanswered questions.” She’s going to be introduced to them in a big way, in “Run Cold.”
We meet the dramatis personae quickly. Jack Mabie – the “meanest man in Alaska.” Yukon pioneer, murderer by his own admission – the frontier justice of legend. Now’s he’s old, tired, crippled by a stroke. Sam Pilot, his long-time friend and co-conspirator. And alibi-giver for the past, as it happens. Sonia and Paul Petrievich, she a newspaper reporter, he her twin, a cypher in the family. We meet the parents, Hank and mother, Irina, too. Hank bigger than life, a pioneer that built an empire in the north. There’s Ty Gilley, looking for his lost father, a victim of that frontier justice. Preston Strange and his mother Tessa, self-proclaimed most powerful woman in Alaska. And Noah West, Athabascan Indian and now college-educated lawyer, advocate for his people, and Sonia’s beloved. He lives in both worlds, the “brown” and the white. Comfortable enough until the murders occur.
All of these people coexist until long buried secrets threaten. Then the murders start, culminating in Sonia’s death (one that you can kinda see coming, but distressing, all the same). Now betrayal and heartbreak are part and parcel of the plot. Dark secrets and unhappy lives busted out for anyone to see. As an Outsider, Edna’s asked to fight the good fight and see that justice is done. (It’s telling that law enforcement plays little part in this story. It’s pretty much Edna, from start to finish.)
“Grief can push folk into madness,” says one of the characters, and this simple pronouncement is at the heart of the story. With all gathered in the hotel that is also almost a character, Edna relates a story of vengeance and aftermath, and how the past shapes the future in unforeseeable and horribly sad ways.
Prominent in the story is the author’s interpretation of how the Athabascans, the Dené, are reacting to the changes taking place. Much space is given over to this. Understand that this becomes almost as important as the murder plot. This may not be to every reader’s taste, but the path to exposing a murderer is not always a straight one.
The epilogue explains what happened to many of the characters, which was definitely appreciated and appropriate for the story. It also relates what impact Edna Ferber’s “Ice Palace” had on the public of the times, many considering that its publication helped to push through the vote for statehood. To the fictional Miss Ferber, the accolades are ashes. Readers do at least get an idea that Edna and those she cares about are moving on, which is pretty much all you can hope for after finishing “Run Cold.” But this is not a bad thing, this is the author’s skill at creating a brilliant fictional world.
Thanks to the publisher and to NetGalley for a copy of the book in advance of publication, in exchange for this review.