[Nathan Active Mystery 04] • Village of the Ghost Bears

“[Jones]'s created a richly populated universe you'll be sorry to leave”—*People Magazine*

“You can't fake the stuff Stan Jones pulls off in *Village of the Ghost Bears* . . . A writer of muscular words and stark images, Jones sets up his scenes like film shots. . . . This kind of writing makes for strong reading, especially with a sturdy murder plot to give it structure.”—*New York Times Book Review*

“Trooper Nathan Active's beat is a few outposts in a remote, frigid world.  But wherever people live, they bring greed, madness, and death. Active's courageous and stubborn determination to gather the scattered bits of evidence make Stan Jones's **Village** **of the Ghost Bears** a fascinating rendition of the human struggle for truth.”—**Thomas Perry**, author of *Runner* and *Vanishing Act*

“His sympathetic portrayal of Alaska's mixed-ethnic traditions is a tribute to both the state and the states of mind it inspires.”—*Publishers Weekly*, starred review

**Praise for the Nathan Active series:**

“No one shows you the ugly side of Alaska the way Stan Jones does.”—Marilyn Stasio, *The New York Times Book Review*

“Trooper Active proves such an interesting and likable guide that the selfish reader can’t but hope Nathan won’t get that Anchorage transfer for at least a few more books.”—*The Wall Street Journal*

“I can’t wait for Nathan Active’s next adventure.”—*Chicago Tribune*

“Jones captures in precise detail . . . the starkly individual spirit of this village’s collection of characters. . . . His depiction of a freezing world of tarpaper houses and whaling camps is absolutely convincing.”—*Houston Chronicle*

“First rate.”—*Library Journal*, starred review

Alaska State Trooper Nathan Active must figure out what connects a dead hunter on a remote Arctic lake with a year-old fatal plane crash in the Brooks Range and a fire at the Chukchi Recreation Center that killed eight people, including the town’s basketball star. The case turns out to involve a lucrative polar bear poaching operation and the intense bond between a brother and sister from the village of Cape Goodwin, famous in the Arctic for twins, polar bears, and schizophrenia. The heart of the matter, he discovers, is a dead woman whose killer remembers her as having a mouth so sweet “it was like kissing a Hershey bar.”

**Stan Jones** is a native of Alaska. He has worked as an award-winning journalist and a bush pilot. He is the author of three previous mysteries in the acclaimed Nathan Active series.