by Dana Stabenow
NAL, September 2002
272 pages, $23.95
ISBN: 0451207025
Liam Campbell series #4
Alaskan state trooper, Sergeant Liam Campbell, has been offered his old job back in Anchorage. Once upon a time, the answer would have been a no-brainer. He'd have been out of Newenham, a small fishing village, and back in Anchorage and on the fast track for more promotions. Now the answer is neither fast nor easy. He has fallen in love with Wyanet Chouinard, Alaskan pilot.
Liam also likes the people of Newenham, especially feisty Lydia Tompkins, a seventy-four year old housewife, mother of four, and grandmother of two. Liam meets Lydia when she stops a man from breaking into her car at the grocery store by hitting him with a jar of sun-dried tomatoes.
A severed arm clutching a gold coin, discovered near Bear Glacier shakes up the little town. Wy flies Liam to the glacier to investigate and they find the skeleton of a WW2 Air Force cargo plane embedded in the face of the glacier. Not much investigating can be done until the glacier calves and the remains of the plane come tumbling down.
Liam and Wy return to town and Liam is hit with the news that Lydia has been found dead at her house. As he begins his investigation, he is also struggling with the tension that has built between him and Wy since the job offer, now complicated by the return of Wy's old boyfriend.
And Wy has problems of her own--her adopted son, Tim, has been ordered by the court to see his birth mother and Wy agrees to the arrangement in spite of Tim's refusal to see her and his anger with Wy for forcing him to do so. Wy has also quite unexpectedly found some of her own blood family--bearing an interesting "gift".
When Liam's father, Colonel Charles Bradley Campbell of the US Air Force, pops into town accompanied by an FBI agent and both are interested in the airplane crash site, Liam suspects there is more than just a body recovery operation going on.
As Liam investigates Lydia's death, pumps his dad for classified information, and tries to decide whether to stay in Newenham, another body is found at Lydia's house, and Liam begins to suspect that somehow the two deaths are related to the 1941 cargo plane crash.
Better to Rest is an excellent mystery with some very interesting characters. If you haven't read the first three books, you might feel a bit lost at first, but the effort to continue is well worth it. Similar in style to Sue Henry's Alaskan mystery series, once you read this book, you will want to go back and start at the beginning of the series, Fire and Ice, to get to know these intriguing people.
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