DESPITE THE PECULIAR NAMEâand a few town misfitsâBloodrun, Alaska is ordinarily a quiet and peaceful place. This morning, however, Detective Terry Volker is called to the scene of a ghastly murder where the victim has been sawed in half at the waist. While the borough's small police department begins putting an investigation together, Terry becomes haunted by memories of his past âdutiesââthe desperate measures heâs had to employ to catch other bad menâand doubts if he still has what it takes to stop this one.
With the help of his partner Eddie Koyukuk, they travel together down a dark path through Bloodrunâs history, ancient Inuit mythologies, twisted ciphers, psychoactive hallucinogens, and most dreadfully, more severed bodies. As their list of suspects dwindles and they become more immersed in the townâs sinister folklore, Terry begins to wonder if the killer is just some small-town oddity who believes in these evil legends, or if there's something more to themâsomething in the blood.
DESPITE THE PECULIAR NAMEâand a few town misfitsâBloodrun, Alaska is ordinarily a quiet and peaceful place. This morning, however, Detective Terry Volker is called to the scene of a ghastly murder where the victim has been sawed in half at the waist. While the borough's small police department begins putting an investigation together, Terry becomes haunted by memories of his past âdutiesââthe desperate measures heâs had to employ to catch other bad menâand doubts if he still has what it takes to stop this one.
With the help of his partner Eddie Koyukuk, they travel together down a dark path through Bloodrunâs history, ancient Inuit mythologies, twisted ciphers, psychoactive hallucinogens, and most dreadfully, more severed bodies. As their list of suspects dwindles and they become more immersed in the townâs sinister folklore, Terry begins to wonder if the killer is just some small-town oddity who believes in these evil legends, or if there's something more to themâsomething in the blood.
âAh, how sad it is that I still remain in this muddy swamp of death and rebirth even now, after countless ages without beginning or end.â
- The Tibetan Book of the Dead
I T â S C O L D E N O U G H this morning that the air itself is freezing. Pillars of light can be seen in the distance stretching upward until they meet the black sky. Mostly streaks of whites and yellowsâa few pale blues and oranges. They reflect off the otherwise imperceptible ice crystals which suspend in the atmosphere below the clouds.
Even more imperceptible than this ice fogâand the gentle tinkling of the air freezingâis a black timber wolf. He stands at the edge of the pines which encapsulate the source of the various lightsâa town. Frost covered streetlamps; early opening storefronts; the tip of a water tower. He stands cloaked in the darkness and surveys the optical illusions glowing in the sky and all the strange things that the people build which rest motionless below.
He seems to be waiting for somethingânot making a soundâappearing to not even breathe, until a trainâs horn drones in the distance as it nears. Another beam of light casts up into the sky. Then another. Soon, he hears a car snaking down Hilldrum Roadâits engine roars through the trees and echoes off the crisp snow.
The people are beginning to rise.
For a second, the wolf vanishes into the darkness as he blinks his sapphire eyes and then turns tail and disappears completely into the pines from which he came.
P I P E S C R E A K from behind a shower curtain as a man turns off the water. He drips onto the bare floor as he reaches for the rolled-up towel that he left on the sink. The bathroom has an unusual atmosphere to it for right after a showerâcool, dry and still. No lingering cloud of steam floats in the air. No aroma of soap. The only real sign that someone has recently been bathing comes from the sound of the dripping showerhead.
The man wraps himself in the towel and steps out of the tub, closing the curtain behind him. In the fogless mirror, he observes his reflection. Heâs overdue for both a shave and a haircut, but he pays little attention to this. Instead, his eyes go to his chestâwhich has been beaten red from his deliberate use of cold water.
Thereâs a scratching sound coming from the other side of the bathroom door, but he ignores it. He can also hear his cell phone buzzing, but he ignores that too. In the mirror, the reflection of one of his pink hands rises towards his neck, stops before his collarbone, and presses lightly on his blood rushed skin. Pale fingerprints are left behind, but they quickly return to the color of raw meat as he lowers his hand away.
A small hieroglyph-looking tattoo marks his forearm, which swings faintly for a moment as his hand steadies and then hangs. At a glance, it resembles the iconic âpeace sign,â with a few variations. Peace is the first of the three virtues that are used as the motto for the police precinct where he worksâthe other two being bravery and justiceâbut his tattoo appears much different when examined closely. Itâs not often examined closely though, or at all, really. The strange marking is almost always hidden by his sleeves, but even when theyâre occasionally rolled up, there was only one person who ever recognized it.
He stands there for a few minutesâignoring the sounds outside of the doorâand stares at his skin in the mirror as the red flush slowly fades away. When all the sounds return to silenceâthe scratching, the buzzing, the creaks and drips from the showerâhe notices that his skin has completely dried. His chest has also paled back over and itâs once again ready to bear the badge of the Bloodrun Borough Police Department.
H E P L A C E S A B U N D L E O F B L A N K E T S down onto the steps outside of his front door to grab some letters from his mailbox, and then resumes down the shoveled path to his old but well-kept Bronco. With the blankets held in one arm, he checks the time on his cell phone with the other:
8:26amâtwo hours late.
As he reads the time, he also sees two voicemail notifications from his âpartnerâ Eddie.
Most detectives in the Bloodrun precinct earn their rank through merit alone, but itâs not unheard of for patrolmen like Eddie to shadow under a veteran detective for trainingâespecially when theyâre as shorthanded as they are. Despite feeling that Eddie might have a screw or two loose, the detective took to him quickly and already thinks of him as a partner rather than a protĂ©gĂ©.
âSh, sh shâitâs okay,â he says and places the bundle of blankets down in the back of the Bronco before getting behind the wheel.
O N E O F T H E L E T T E R S in the small stack of mail catches the manâs attention from the corner of his eye as he drives recklessly while swiping through his missed calls. He places his phone between his head and shoulder to get a better grip on the steering wheel as he listens to his voicemail, and then probes the envelopes blindly with his free hand.
âTerry,â a voice on the first recording says with an unfamiliar toneâtoo serious for Eddie, who normally likes to fuck around. He stops fingering through the bills and flyers to listen more intently now, but heâs already spotted the dreaded white envelope.
âThereâs a dead body at Point Woronzof,â the voice continues. âYou need to come quick.â A short silence follows and the message ends. Terry exhales as he pulls the heavy letter from the rest of the pile and then plays the second message. This one is just a few seconds of static that ends with an inarticulate syllable.
Terry flicks on his roof lights and notes that he didnât hear Chief Eddowes in the background yelling about where he was. In fact, there wasnât any noise at all besides some breathing and the failed attempt to say something. Point Woronzof, like many of Bloodrunâs scenic views and attractions, doesnât draw as much activity in the winter, but it still usually has plenty of dog walkers and children playing.
Itâs even possible to hear the train from it.
T E R R Y P A R K S on Brigantine Boulevardâor âthe Brig,â as itâs referred to by the localsâbehind three BBPD cruisers, but instead of opening the door and heading to the crime scene, he just stares down at the envelope. Itâs normally his custom to get right out; to lift up the yellow tapeâto restore the peace of Bloodrun. But normally, there are only restaurant coupons and bank statements in his mailbox. Half of him knows that he should deal with this letter later, but the stronger halfâor perhaps the weakerâcannot wait. It tears the envelope open without his consent and yanks out the contents.
The first line reads:
HANNAH VS. TERRANCE VOLKERâ
and Terryâs hands drop to his lap.
On any random day, without even seeing what awaits him beyond the circle of yellow caution tape, Terry Volker can always call out if he needs to. He could tell them that he just canât do it today; that something came upâsomething awful. He always does his job and usually sees to it fairly wellâenough to garner the position of a small-town detective, at least. Although heâs recently developed a habit of coming in late, he canât remember a time when heâs ever called out before. Theyâd understand. But this is not his nature.
He canât bring himself to pull out his phone and make the call, but heâs also unable to get out and leave the divorce papers behind. Trapped inside his own vehicle, Terry looks across the street.
Ordinarily, the Brig is relatively full of life, but peaceful. Standard small-town shops dot the sidewalksâamiable places to buy saltwater taffies and coffee or hunting knives. All family owned. All handmade. Locals would carry their groceries, tourists would tote gift bags. But now, the Brig is nearly desolate. Ten yards or so away from where Terry parked, he sees Eddie and other Bloodrun PD illuminated by a spotlight in the dark Alaskan winter morning. Their figures shroud whatever the light is shining on, but he knows what it is.
Thereâs no time for this, Terry thinks.
He watches a group of frightened pedestrians be ushered across the street and then sighs heavily as he leans his head back onto the headrest. Only a second of solace is given to him before a memory flashes in his mind: the time when he vainly uttered, âI can fix thisââ
It makes him flinch, but act.
He takes one last look at the summons sent to him from Hannahâs lawyer and then shoves them into his glove compartment and slams it shut.
A G O O D M A N has no desire to do evil, because a good man has no desire. A good man can sleep easy knowing that he may die at onceâat any minuteâbecause he never worries himself with things that are out of his control. A good man can pull back the scrim and not become fixated on what he sees.
A good man, Terry Volker is not, yet heâs not all bad either.
A cold shower can help make some men good, at least, Terry believesâso he compulsively tries to wash away everything thatâs wrong with him down the drain in raw stinging water. A cold shower, despite the wonders that it can do for the body and soul, will not protect either from the eternal end. Terry knows this and he fears it with disgrace.
But it isnât so much the dying that bothers him; itâs doing it alone.
âJesus, Terâsick fuck,â Eddie embarks a few steps away from the perimeter. âIâve never seen anything like this,â he admits. Eddie hasnât seen a lot at all really, compared with Terry or some of the others on their meager forceâbut no one was ready for this. Behind him, Terry can see pale flesh belonging to a pair of legs lying on top of the snow.
A womanâs legs.
âSheâs beenâŠâ Eddie tries again, but Terry strides around him and he can see the awful butchery; a naked body in two pieces. His eyes dart across her feet and up her thighs, but then stop abruptly at her waist. Where her abdomen is supposed to begin, emerges a scarlet voidâa red stained window into something that never shouldâve been opened. Itâs so jarring to lay eyes on that for a few moments, Terry canât even make sense of it.
N O N E O F T H E M can make sense of it, yet thereâs no mistaking the sinister reality of what lies before them; that someone did this. What theyâre looking at didnât occur from the result of some horrific accident or cruelty of natureâno matter how much theyâd like to convince themselves otherwise. Thereâs no hope for them in believing that theyâre just spectators to some perverse prank, or heinous propâor even an optical illusion in the snow.
âAha!â one would say, sliding up a plane of glass, revealing the dead girl to be still alive and intact on the other side.
âMagic!â another would cheer with relief as he helped her to her feet.
They all know that there is no smoke or mirrors anywhere creating a twisted trick of the eye, but many of them still rather check before getting any closer to herâbefore they canât come back from seeing that itâs real. They want to hold on to a feeling that they arenât really here, like theyâre just acting out a scene in some sick theatre that theyâve all been forced to appear in. But no amount of wishing that some incompetent magician just opened his box up to discover that a slight mishap occurred while sawing his pretty assistant in half will make it so.
Abracadabra, Alakazaâ
The oldest of the officers recall the baffling cases of cattle mutilation that occurred across the Lower 48 during the 1970sâall of which were chalked up to things like alien abductions, government conspiracies, sacrificial cults and in the end, lightning strikes. Eddie Koyukuk, the youngest amongst them, comes to recall the story about a monster that his mother scared him with before bed as a child. None of these will do thoughâthese are all nonsense.
Someone did this, and that disturbs them more than the body itselfâthat a person could be so depraved to commit such a heinous act of violence. Somewhere out there is a human being made of the same flesh and blood as theirs, but in a way they didnât care much to discover, far more monster than man. It shouldnât be real, but the fact that it is, disturbs them so profoundly that it distorts their perspective of the world around them.
Everything that normally appears mundane is now bizarre; the glints on the snow shudder with a mysterious light; the steam from their breaths escapes them like departing souls. Thereâs even an unspoken feeling amongst them that something seems to exude from the frozen halves of the body itself and seeps into their pores. It hums in the air like a marvelous ball of electricity that encapsulates the corpse and dares them all to come a bit closerâjust a stepâand complete the circuit. Like that odd anticipation that comes sometimes right before falling asleepâa phantasmal jerkâas if something is hovering above you and ready to bop you on the tip of your nose and jolt you awake. They feel it prowlingâvibrating between every molecule in the airâand it consumes their thoughts. The very sound of someoneâs voice might even wrench them from this dream with a convulsive shock.
Itâd relieve them from having to unearth any of the dreaded answers to this vicious crime, but still, none of them say a word. Something holds their heads behind the curtain, shoving their faces down into the magicianâs box and forces them to see how horribly his trick had gone wrong. Simply turning away from itâas if even an optionâdoesnât mean that it will turn away from them.
âS I C K S O N O F A B I T C H,â someone eventually brings themself to say, and then they all repeat it like some sort of compulsive rite. They can hardly tell if theyâre saying it themselves or only hearing someone else say it. Along with Terry and Eddie, more officers and other personnel show up one by one and join in the chant.
âSick son of a bitch.â
âTwisted fuck,â some deviate.
Terry stands at her feetâlooming over her bodyâand stares into the red frozen display of her abdominal cavity. For a moment far too brief, it appears less like a dead girlâ
âSick son of a bitch,â
âand more like a slide from some graphic medical journal; a sagittal slice from a donated cadaver which consented strictly for the purposes of anatomical study. He stares at the thick layers of muscles and finds that he can identify the psoas and the obliques from the days when he had time to lift weights. The rest of it remains viscera to him though, which reminds him that he isnât glancing at a medical journal or poking his head into the observation window of some grotesque surgery. He wishes that he could identify more because it made her easier to look at. Chief Eddowes had advised him to do similar things in the past, in other lurid casesâones that involved children.
âA view from aboveâ, Eddowes called it.
But even those cases were nowhere near as disturbing as this.
âTwisted mother fuââ another tries to join in but stops to catch his stomach.
Terry looks over to Rudd Hassonâthe retiring detective whose position Eddie hopes to fillâand sees that the older man also looks sick. Terry doesnât want to be the one to crouch down and examine this one, but he knows that he mustâeven if it wasnât for Ruddâs bad hip. For whatever reason, Terry always has a strong stomach when it comes to the unpleasantries of the job.
Itâs the fact that this girl was someoneâs daughter that makes Terry need to look at her from some other point of viewâbut unfortunately, heâs out of anatomical knowledge. All that he can observe now is how it all seems to be so neatly tucked into place; the large empty aorta and vena cava tubes; the pink labyrinth of small intestine on top of a sliver of her right kidney; and then at the bottom, the exposed bone where the spine curves, making it impossible for whatever cut her in half to pass cleanly in between her spinal column. He even notes the careful arrangement of her hair.
He didnât just dump her, Terry thinks.
He wanted her to be seen.
It all horrifies and confounds him as much as it angers and disgusts him. He wishes he could be back in his Bronco right now. Heâd rather face the music notated on his divorce papers than look at this any longer.
W H I L E T E R R Y S T A R E S A T T H E C O R P S E, Eddie feels a shameful pride when one of the other officers gets sickâa steaming puddle of coffee and half-digested donuts on the other side of the yellow tapeâand how he is able to hold it down like Terry.
âSick bastard,â another voice from the choir winces.
Terry may have a strong stomach, but he is sick. Frankly, Terry is lucky to have only been called to a few crime scenes with dead bodies. Most of them were already dead before he arrived, but whatâs far worseâthe ones who died after.
âShe appears to have been drained and cleaned to some degree,â a voice says as Eddie walks over to the other side of the girlâs severed body. Terry tries to listen without breaking his gaze, even as someone hands him a pair of blue nitrile gloves which he puts on unconsciously.
âShe mustâve been killed somewhere else,â the voice continues, this time followed by the click-click of a camera. âOut in the open like thisâsomeone wouldâve seen it. Plus, the killer wouldâve needed a place to clean her up.â
Terry and Eddie look across at each other with apprehensionâ
âSick son of a bitch.â
âand then all they can do is look down and listen.
âT H E R E A P P E A R S to be no other signs of fatal injury, indicating that the laceration through the waist could be the cause of deathâvia an extremely large and rapid amount of blood loss,â the womanâs voice says bleakly. âThat is, given the victim wasnât mercifully poisoned or fortunate enough to suffer from cardiogenic shock first.â
âWait, you think that she was alive when this happened?â Eddie asks.
âThe ligature marks around her wrists and ankles indicate that she was held captive, so, itâs possible that she couldâve been restrained during theâŠâ the woman says, hesitating to use the word âoperation.â She spins a dial on her camera, adjusting the exposure and then photographs the bruises on the ankles above the dead girlâs white feet. Terry looks to the pale face and becomes mesmerized by the endless gaze of her eyes which almost stare back at him through a thin casing of cloudy frost.
âSheri,â Terry addresses the woman taking pictures without looking away from the dead girlâs eyes. Terryâs good at remembering names, unlike his protĂ©gĂ©âhe even has a neat trick that helps him remember faces. âWhat do you think this was⊠a chainsaw?â
âIâm not sure,â she says. âHelduser will be able to figure it out, but thatâs what Iâm leaning towards.â Eddie shakes his head as Terry scans the rest of the body.
âDid you get the head and shoulders yet?â he asks.
Sheri nods and raises the large camera, as if to say, âRight here.â Terry presumes to delicately lift the corpseâs head without disturbing the hair as much as possibleâwhich all flows out to one side above her right shoulder. Eddie crouches down to examine the back of her head and immediately finds a small âCâ shaped wound.
âLooks like she was hit with something roundâmaybe the edge of a pipe,â Eddie says in Sheriâs direction. Hearing this, âthe woman with the cameraââwhich is how Eddie refers to her when she isnât aroundâcomes over and crouches next to him to photograph the wound.
Sheri hates it when she gets pulled away from her initial sweepâespecially by patrolmenâand on any other day mayâve politely told him to wait. Detectives are usually keener in understanding how easily oversights can occur from this, but she isnât about to make Terry touch this one a second time. After Eddie makes sure that he didnât miss anything, Terry puts the head back in place and Sheri returns where she left off photographing the dead body and the area surrounding it.
A S T H E L A T E D A W N finally approaches, the first indications of light from behind Mount Tuqujuq begin to illuminate Point Woronzof and the dead girlâs body with an orange twilight. The winter solstice passed a few weeks ago and the days are officially opening back up again, but itâs a slow processâagonizing for some. On a clear day, itâs possible for Bloodrun, Alaska to get about five hours of daylight in the winter, but the sun doesnât fully riseâif thatâs how it can even be describedâuntil about 10:00am at this time of year.
They keep the dead girlâs body outside longer than usual so that Sheri can take an abundance of photographsâand then she takes more. The Southcentral Alaska chillâwhich bites their cheeks at 3 degrees this morningâhas kept the body well preserved, according to Bloodrunâs small forensic team. They estimate that sheâs been dead for about six hours. Had it been the summer, nature wouldâve provided a host of other threats of contamination beyond a much faster decomposition; coyotes and ravens could very well have dragged her off and picked her apart before she was ever found.
âW H O W O U L D D O S O M E T H I N G like this?â Terry asks.
The skin of the corpse is so clean and pale that it almost blends right in with the snow. From a distance, the only things that stand out are the two scarlet ovals of the bodyâs open waist. Her legs are positioned together but tilted to one side, which causes them to bend slightly at the knees with her feet pointing away. Her torso lies face up with her palms resting near the sides of her head and her frozen eyes fixed on the sky. Terry catches himself thinking there would be something seductive to the pose, if you found her like that in your bedâalive and in one piece. Sheâs young and good-looking and has striking hair that floods the snow to the right side of her face.
âDo you think it could be related to another crime?â Eddie asks after a moment. âOne from somewhere else, maybe⊠I mean, this sort of thing doesnât happen here.â
Despite the macabre sounding name of the town, Eddieâs assertion rings trueâthe area that the Bloodrun River flows through is largely a quiet placeâlike many of the small towns across the state. The borough does receive a reasonable amount of skiers in the winter, but its big stir usually doesnât come until the summer; when tourists hope to catch a glimpse of the natural phenomenon which once caused the great river to run red thousands of years agoâsomething that hasnât happened since, and is unlikely to ever happen again. To the relief of most of the townâs residents, itâs a steadily dying attraction with only one place in town profiteering from it.
âDidnât the Black Dahlia cut a girl in half somewhere in California?â Eddie ventures, unsure if the nickname belonged to the victim or her killer.
âYeah,â Terry replies. âBut that was too long agoâthe killer would be an old man by now, if heâs even still alive.â
âDonât rule out old men,â Rudd Hasson says, but no one acknowledges him.
âMaybe a copycat?â Eddie suggests with a raised brow.
âItâs possible,â Terry says and snorts. He can feel his nose hairs prickling the insides of his nostrils as they freeze stiff from the moisture in his breath. âBut something tells me this is different. That girl down south had extensive mutilation done to her in addition to being cut in half.â
Terry pauses for a moment and tilts his head to one side like a confused dog and stares into the girlâs eyes which appear to follow him as he stands.
âThis girl is almost untouched,â he says. âThat wound you found on the back of her head was most likely just to put her off her feet.â
Besides the positioning of the body, the killer left no sign that he was even here. No little game pieces that beckoned them to find him like on some silly television showâno little totem, calling cardâor even a goddamn eyelash. He simply didnât want to be found and had no interest in playing any games of cat and mouse with them. Not even a single useable footprint can be pulled from the snow around the body. The dense white blanket, which hasnât received fresh powder in two weeks, has since crusted over and remains sharp and hardâmore like a rough sheet of ice.
âNo witnesses,â Terry says, and Eddie shakes his head. âWho found her?â
âMarlene Foster,â Eddie says. âShe was out for a run this morning with a headlamp on when the light bounced on âtwo red blobs.â She thought it was an animal at firstâfrom road hunters or poachers againâso she went in for a closer look. She said she called us immediately after she saw the feetâwaited over there until we showed up,â Eddie says, pointing to one of the benches that face Brigantine Boulevard. âDispatch told her to try and keep anyone else from coming over to it, but she said that she was too shaken to think straightâunderstandably so I guess, hence all of the bystanders we had to move across the street.â
âDid any of them get pictures?â Terry asks.
âThere werenât any reporters in the crowd when we got here if thatâs what youâre askiââ
âThatâs not what Iâm asking,â Terry says sharply. The mentioning of reporters makes Terry cringe with bitter resentment. âThereâs going to be pandemonium once this gets out, Eddie.â
âI mean, we couldnât confiscate anyoneâs cell phoââ Eddie tries to rationalize but gets cut short again.
âYou didnât have to frisk anyone to get their cooperation in keeping this hush,â Terry says. Eddie thinks about his next words more carefully before speaking this time.
âWell, I donât think Marlene is in any conditionâor more to the pointâthe type of person to go gossiping all over town about this. As for the others, I donât think anyone wanted the sight that they came over here to see. They were probably all too dumbfounded to do anything but stand there, which is what they were doing when we arrivedâzombies. Our own men barely knew what to doâI didnât know what to do, but I certainly didnât feel the urge to take a picture. I should hope that the people in this town are more human than that.â Eddie pauses for a moment and Terry nods.
âI think any journalists we might have in town are probably over at the community center for the Native Women vs. White Men Tug-o-War, anyway,â Eddie continues, âbut I imagine thereâs at least one grilling those people across the Brig by now.â
This time, Eddieâs use of the word journalist inadvertently compels Terry to remember two headlines that were printed about him in The Crest after the tragic shooting at The Rod & Reel Tavern 15 years ago:
âTEEN SHOT IN THE BACKâ
and
âUNARMED AND SLAIN
BY OFF DUTY PATROLMANâ
The families of the victims that the shooter massacred before being gunned down himself were appalled reading them. They consider Terry a hero for what he didâregardless of the circumstances in which the nineteen-year-old boy was subduedâbut Terry never got over the smear.
âMissing Persons has been notified?â Terry asks, bringing his eyes back to Eddieâs.
âOf course,â Eddie says.
âDid you talk to anyone in the shops across the street yet?â Terry asks as they duck under the yellow tape. âIt wouldâve been dark out, but the candy shop and Sullivanâs open early,â Terry says and stares at the CLOSED sign hanging in the front door of the tattoo parlor on the corner.
âOld Sully,â Eddie begins with sarcastic cheer as they approach the sidewalk, âstone walled me and called me a âflatfooted lickspittleââwhatever that means.â
âIt means youâre a kiss ass.â
âI am not,â Eddie says, stopping at the curb.
âDo you think she saw something?â Terry asks and turns around to read Eddieâs face. After a moment of consideration, Eddie nods and Terry continues walking.
âSheâll talk to me,â he says over his shoulder.
âWhatâwhy?â Eddie asks following behind, trying to hide that he already knows all about the âAcid Copâ story which accounts for Terry and Tina Sullivanâs relationship.
âFor one, youâre dressed like a copââ
âI am a cop,â Eddie says and looks down at his uniform. âChief said no tie and jacket until I compleââ
âTina hates cops,â Terry says turning back around. âAnd two,â he continues, âI guess you could say she kind of owes me.â
âFor what?â
âWell,â Terry says, thinking of the simplest way to recount the debt. âI caught the kid that killed her husband.â
âReally?â Eddie asks, still hoping to get Terryâs version of what exactly happenedâopposed to the gossip that heâs heard around the station, and the old microfiche article he foundâanother blow courtesy of The Crest. âWhen?â
âA long time ago,â Terry says as he steps up onto the curb on the other side of the street. âWhile you were still at the academy licking spit.â
âTer,â Eddie changes to a more concerned tone.
âWhat?â
âYou were pretty late getting here this morning⊠You and Hannah still working it out?â Eddie asks and fruitlessly searches Terryâs blank face. âHas she responded to any of your calls?â
âYeah,â Terry says and opens the door to the local coffee shop.
Having recently spent two weeks in Alaska and already wanting to find my way back there, the setting of Something in the Blood was a major draw. It's beautiful, remote, and dangerous. All great things when trying to stage one of the more enigmatic serial killers I've read about recently.
For a small town, Bloodrun has a pretty large cast of characters. With such a high number of named people, many surprised me by how well fleshed out they felt. I would have liked to see more from one arc in particular, but the characters were a highlight of the novel for me.
The writing style is more lyrical than I usually see in this genre, with descriptions often waxing poetic. There are some truly gorgeous pieces of writing, but the indulgence is both a blessing and curse. While the depictions are gorily haunting, the focus can sometimes feel misplaced. Some scenes feel bogged down or blurry because the content is sacrificed for the aesthetic. At points, plausibility also takes a hit for it too.
Though the setting and premise made me very excited to read this book, it was an uphill battle for me because of the narrative structure. Action bounces back and forth from the present to the past. Not until most of the way through did I realize it was also often more than a decade into the past. I prefer a more linear structure, usually, or at least references at the start of scenes or chapters for better clarity. Layer that in with ongoing tales of Native Alaskan lore, rereading for understanding was often necessary. I was also a little confused because the chapter numbers started over midway through at a section break.
The setting alone can make Something in the Blood stand out for horror or thriller readers looking for something unique. I am not sure if this truly fits the subgenres it's listed as, but it strikes the right tones for the larger genre.