Review: Shaman Pass by Stan Jones

[miko]

Shaman Pass is the second Nathan Active mystery, by Stan Jones - and the first I've read of the series, since the earlier one wasn't available. It's a rural policing novel set in Alaska in a largely native community.

I'm not really sure what to say about this one. I feel no strong emotions with regard to the book: the crime solving was fine, I enjoyed the setting and characters, but I didn't feel terribly drawn into any of it. In fact, I put it down a few times despite it being a short mystery novel.

I think maybe the writing didn't grab me, since all the component parts seem okay? The only thing that truly troubled me was the character name: "Active" led me to misparse a number of sentences, especially if it was the first word. "Silver", another last name, also bothered me... some of this might be the assumption that I'd read the first book and therefore knew the characters, but I don't think so. My poor memory doesn't usually lead to misreads like that.

I'd recommend it more if you had a passing interest in the natives of Alaska than as a really great mystery novel. Despite the meh-ness of this description, I still intend to continue the series, because it wasn't bad... it just wasn't exceptional either.