Do you enjoy

✔️Edgy cozy mysteries?
✔️Remote locations/small towns?
✔️Mysteries/secrets to uncover?
✔️Amatuer sleuths?
✔️Female-centric books?
✔️Taut plotting and layered characters?

Then you’ll surely be charmed by the local magic permeating the lovely community known as Benedict, Alaska. It’s literally surrounded by mountains and lies amidst some of the most impressive and majestic scenery and pristine wilderness areas left in the world. Benedict, although fictional, is based on Gustavus, a community situated at the gateway to Glacier Bay National Park. A plus for this series? The author has spent time there!

In addition to the rugged landscape, the community is also a star in this series. It’s comprised of an eclectic and realistic mix of cultures and varying ages. Shelton’s top-notch exploration of this community reveals its mystery and how its members support each other as a means of survival. She shows readers why community is so important and highlights the concepts of trust and care. With weather that can be unpredictable, a cell phone service that is almost non-existent, a remote location, and a life of co-existing with wildlife, survival means working together.

People often arrive in Alaska to get lost and are careful to cover their tracks; not so for a few of the characters in this book. Yes, they’ve come to get lost but they weren’t as careful as they thought. Add this to the small community setting where everyone has secrets and a rooming house where everyone is in everyone else’s business and you have a great setup for suspense and mystery. Not everyone is who they pretend to be!

We spent two days cruising Glacier Bay last week and a large majority of my time, when not snapping photos of the glaciers, was spent reading this book set in this very wilderness. Yes, I too, found myself grabbing the binoculars and scanning the shorelines of the islands for evidence of life - not necessarily wildlife. Why? Well, I was reading about people on the run, kidnapped people, escaped convicts, WITSEC, bear attacks, and close calls in Glacier Bay.

I’ve been following this Alaska Wild series since book 1 and find that it just keeps getting better. I hope there are more books planned for this series because I don’t want to say goodbye to Beth … yet.

Yes, this book can be read as a standalone but I think you’ll appreciate the build-up of community and character by starting with ‘Thin Ice.’

I was gifted this copy by St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley and was under no obligation to provide a review.

The best part of Shelton’s Alaska mystery series is the set of characters that populate the small town of Benedict. Beth Rivers is the crime novelist who came to Benedict a year ago to hide from her still-on-the-loose kidnapper (he was finally found and incarcerated in the last book); Viola, the tough-as-nails manager of the halfway house; Orin, the peace-sign flashing librarian and computer genius; and Gril, the grizzled police chief relocated from Chicago.

In this, the fifth installment, Beth gets involved with a woman claiming to have escaped her own kidnapper who was killed by a bear. But the woman is not exactly what she seems, and a whole pile of complicated connections must be unearthed before the solution can be found.

A little more filler in this one, but still an entertaining read.

Good book! This book had a bit of everything! It had suspense, intrigue, murder, mystery, revenge, A great who done it, and a few crazy twists and turns! The storyline was very interesting and kept me glued to my Kindle! I definitely recommend reading this book as it was well worth reading! Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for sharing this book with me!

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martins Press for the opportunity and o read Paige Shelton's Lost Hours, the latest installment in one of my favorite series. I love Benedict, Alaska and the characters Ms Shelton writes feel like old friends.