White Heat

A riveting Arctic mystery that marks the fiction debut of a "wickedly talented" writer (New York Times)
Half Inuit and half outsider, Edie Kiglatuk is the best guide in her corner of the Arctic. But as a woman, she gets only grudging respect from the elders who rule her isolated community on Ellesmere Island. When a man is shot and killed while out on an "authentic" Arctic adventure under her watch, the murder attracts the attention of police sergeant Derek Palliser. As Edie sets out to discover what those tourists were really after, she is shocked by the suicide of someone very close to her. Though these events are seemingly unrelated, Edie's Inuit hunter sensibility tells her otherwise. With or without Derek's help, she is determined to find the key to this connection-a search that takes her beyond her small village and into the far reaches of the tundra.
White Heat is a stunning debut novel set in an utterly foreign culture amid an unforgiving landscape of ice and rock, of spirit ancestors and never-rotting bones. A suspense-filled adventure story that will captivate fans of Henning Mankell's bestselling mysteries, this book marks the start of an exciting new series. Title Info. Dedication. One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
"An arctic setting so real it'll give you frostbite."
"M. J. McGrath opens a window onto a fascinating and disappearing culture in this haunting mystery."
"She weaves a strong strand of whodunit into a broader story about life in a twenty-first-century community on Canada's Ellesmere Island. The plot is wholly satisfying, and McGrath's portrait of a culture that uneasily blends yesterday and today is engrossing on its own merits. The Arctic is a big place-big enough, one hopes, for Edie Kiglatuk to find another mystery that needs solving between warm bowls of seal blood soup fresh from the microwave."
"This
debut novel encompasses the hard, otherworldly beauty of the far north and the
rapaciousness of energy moguls determined to exploit the area's natural
resources."
"The most addictive character-both hero and villain of the piece-is the Arctic itself. It makes a seductive location for a thriller, a land of wonder and terror shut in darkness for months of the year, a place in which temperatures rarely rise above freezing and, in winter, regularly fall below -40ºC."
"In
a gripping debut novel, McGrath transports the reader to a land of almost
incomprehensible cold and an unfamiliar but fascinating culture, taking on
issues of climate change, energy exploration, local politics, and drug and
alcohol abuse. Edie, a fiercely independent woman in a male-dominated milieu,
is sure to win fans. Expect great things from this series."
"Kate Reading, with her straightforward descriptions of the stark Arctic tundra and the cold, unforgiving weather, brings a strong sense of place to her narration. The characters she creates are fully realized, each with its own distinctive voice. Especially well rendered is the troubled Kiglatuk, who comes across-warts and all-as an earnest, courageous, and appealing heroine in this promising new series."
"McGrath
has written a mystery but one reminiscent of Tony Hillerman's culture-clash
novels. The language is beautiful, especially the descriptions of the Inuit
people, living in 'a place littered with bones, with spirits, with reminders of
the past...surrounded by our stories.' Detailed in her knowledge of setting,
McGrath vividly invokes the frozen land, and her portrayals of the rugged
people who cherish its beauty and bounty, especially Edie and Derek, ring true."
"White Heat is a blazing star of a thriller: vivid, tightly-sprung, and satisfying on all levels. Encountering Edie Kiglatuk, the toughest, smartest Arctic heroine since Miss Smilla,