White Heat

June 13, 2011
British journalist McGrath (The Long Exile: A Tale of Inuit Betrayal) makes her fiction debut with a solid thriller, the first in a series featuring Edie Kiglatuk, a half Inuit/half white, Arctic guide. A recovering alcoholic, Edie makes her living leading white (or qalunaat) tourists on hunting expeditions near her tiny outpost town of Autisaq on Canada's Ellesmere Island. When Felix Wagner is fatally shot during such a hunting trip, the local council of elders hurries to declare the death an accident, despite Edie's claim that she saw strange footprints near the body. After Felix's assistant, Andy Taylor, disappears during a subsequent trip while under the supervision of Edie's beloved ex-stepson, Joe Inukpuk, she suspects there's more going on than the routine perils of life in the Arctic. A picture soon emerges that includes a fight for precious natural resources and secrets that stretch back generations. McGrath captures the frigid landscape beautifully, and her heroine personifies the tension between the Inuit and qalunaat ways of life.

November 28, 2011
Half-Inuit Edie Kiglatuk lives on the stark Arctic island of Ellesmere where she makes her living as a guide, something that, as a woman, is grudgingly tolerated by the council of elders. When a tourist in her care is killed, it sets in motion a series of tragic events and another death. When the town’s elders attribute the deaths to unfortunate misadventure and suicide, Edie finds she can’t sit back and accept the decision and begins her own investigation to find the truth. Kate Reading, with her straightforward descriptions of the stark Arctic tundra and the cold, unforgiving weather, brings a strong sense of place to her narration. The characters she creates are fully realized, each with its own distinctive voice. Especially well rendered is the troubled Kiglatuk, who comes across—warts and all—as an earnest, courageous, and appealing heroine in this promising new series. A Viking hardcover.