The Bone Seeker

April 14, 2014
A summer teaching job takes Edie Kiglatuk to Kuujuaq, a Canadian Arctic village, in McGrath’s unsettling third mystery featuring the Arctic guide (after 2012’s The Boy in the Snow). When Edie and Sgt. Derek Palliser, her policeman friend headquartered in Kuujuaq, find student Martha Salliaq’s body in a desolate lake, Derek deputizes Edie to help with the case. Martha’s father recently won a lawsuit against the government, enabling the village to reclaim land used for a Cold War radar base, and the military is about to start its cleanup. When the Department of Defense suddenly takes over the site and the case, the Salliaqs’ lawyer suspects that Martha’s death might be connected to government secrets. A subplot involving Edie’s relationship with her troubled ex-stepson, Willa Inukpuk, adds a redemptive note to an often bleak tale of jealousy, betrayal, and destruction. Despite some clumsy prose, McGrath effectively evokes the spare Arctic landscape and brings life to the people who have inhabited it for generations. Agent: Kim Witherspoon, Inkwell Management.

Starred review from July 1, 2014
The murder of a teenager rocks a remote settlement in Canada's high Arctic.Summer brings many changes to Ellesmere Island, on the northern edge of Nunavut. The ice thins, dovekies return to build their nests on the cliffs, and people flee inland to their summer campgrounds. Droves of unataqti (soldiers) swarm into Camp Nanook on maneuvers. Edie Kiglatuk (The Boy in the Snow, 2012, etc.) moved north from Autisaq to Kuujuaq at the beginning of the season to teach summer school. Her teaching stint ends when 15-year-old Martha Salliaq's body is found in Turngaluk, known to the Inuit as Lake of the Bad Spirits. Now Sgt. Derek Palliser, the senior of the two members of the Ellesmere Island Native Police, needs Edie's help. Although the government in Ottawa sees him as a Nunavut native, the Inuit consider Palliser, a Cree, to be qalunaat, an outsider. Edie serves as his pipeline to the people who can help him solve Martha's murder, starting with the girl's father, Charlie Salliaq. Although Edie is only half Inuit, she still has access to Charlie, whom she addresses as avasirngulik, in deference to his position as tribal chief. But Edie is plagued by doubts about her ability to help Derek solve the case, about her relationship with Chip Muloon, a researcher from the University of Calgary, and about how her role as deputy will affect her relations with the rest of the native population. Those doubts persist even after two unataqti are charged with Martha's murder. Something in the speed with which Col. Al Klinsman seems willing to jail two of his own-and his hostility to Sonia Gutierrez, the Salliaqs' lawyer-makes Edie think the case isn't as simple as Camp Nanook's commanding officer suggests.The chills McGrath's third Edie entry sends down your spine will rival those brought on by any Nunavut winter.

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Starred review from May 1, 2014
The word Eskimo is Cree for head louse. That is why the Eskimo, longtime enemies of the Cree in the Canadian Arctic, go by the name of Inuit. McGrath gives us this small, significant detail in passing, just one of the many historical and cultural references that flavor her latest mystery. This is the third in the acclaimed Edie Kiglatuk series (following The Boy in the Snow, 2012), which stars Kiglatuk, a teacher, half Inuit, half outsider, who solves mysteries with a canny blend of psychological and cultural knowledge. This puzzle weaves together both a murder and an environmental crime; the discovery of both murder victim and crime centers on a lake believed to be inhabited by evil spirits. The murder victim is one of Kiglatuk's summer-school students, a young Inuit woman whom Edie last saw leaving school. The young woman's bludgeoned body is discovered in the lake, and suspects include both locals and the marines and rangers now stationed near the settlement. Edie's friend, Sergeant Derek Palliser, asks her to assist the police in their investigation, especially in getting the girl's Inuit family and friends to bypass taboos surrounding death and the cursed lake and tell Kiglatuk what they know. Filled with cultural tensions, gorgeous Arctic spring scenery, and pulsing suspense.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)