Death in the Deep Freeze: 10 Chilling Alaskan Mystery Books

The Iditarod dog sled race is Alaska’s premier sporting occasion attracting entrants and spectators from all over the globe.

In Sue Henry’s entertaining whodunit, the 1,100-mile journey across the ice to Nome is also the setting for murder — a kind of husky-powered Orient Express. 

As her fellow competitors die one by one, legendary female musher Jessie Arnold sets out to catch the killer before it’s her turn.

The discovery of the body of a sixteen-year-old girl floating on the surface of the Birch River six months after she was reported missing draws in local high schooler Roz Hart. 

Roz suffers from a rare eye condition that has destroyed her central vision. As a result, the teenager must constantly piece together the world from the fragments of information she has. 

It’s a skill that will prove highly useful when it comes working out what really happened the day her schoolmate disappeared.

The lives and culture of the Inupiat Eskimo form the backdrop to this gritty 1998 mystery featuring Police Detective Ray Attla. The murder of a wealthy worker at a remote oil rig in Alaska’s far north sees the stoic Attla heading off through a snowstorm to investigate. 

The wounds on the corpse point to some kind of Inupiat ritual slaying, but Attla begins to suspect there could be other, more conventional motives for the crime. 

A gripping start to what would become a five-book series.

Grieving mother Jenna Rosen gives up a comfortable life in Seattle to return to Alaska in this 1998 novel that fuses detective fiction with elements of the supernatural. Thunder Bay is a thriving resort, but for Jenna, it holds unsettling memories of her two-year-old son, who disappeared there without trace. 

Was it an accident, murder, or was it somehow connected to old Tlingit myths about the dark forces that lurk amongst the sailboats and hotels?  With the help of a local fisherman and a Tlingit shaman she determines to find out, no matter what the personal cost.

Anchorage-born Stabenow launched detective Kate Shugak into our lives back in 1992. The fiery, diminutive Aleut sleuth has appeared in 21 cracking crime novels since then. 

In this, Shugak’s twentieth outing, she’s called in by a former boyfriend to investigate the death of a young Kustaka man who seems to have been caught up in the bitter feud between two villages. 

Filled with fascinating background details and great descriptions of the wild Alaskan wilderness, it’s another great tale in this wonderful series.

Imagine a classic country house mystery involving an inheritance, a cast of back-stabbing relatives, and a creepy butle,r and you have the setup for Brandon Barrows’ hugely entertaining cozy crime mystery. 

The difference is of course, that the mansion in this story is not in Kent, Gloucestershire or even Scotland, but deep in the Alaskan wilderness. 

Despite the dramatic geographic shift, the murders come thick and fast in a tale that might — setting aside – have come from the Golden Age of Agatha Christie.

Watts puts her experience working as a journalist in Alaska to good use in this steamy thriller. Reporter Julia Silva returns to Fairbanks to pursue her career. 

However, she’s still haunted by a story she previously covered in Alaska’s capital — the suicide of a high school basketball star and the murder of his sweetheart that preceded it. 

Tormented by guilt over the affects her coverage may have played in the young man’s death, Julia soon has another problem to deal with, too — a stalker who just might have murder on their mind.

James’ hugely successful Pax Arcana urban fantasy series featuring the heroic knight John Charming, detours to Alaska. The result is a snow-set novella bursting with werewolves, necromancy, haunted radios and, erm, a miniature poodle. 

There’s a missing friend and a wilderness cabin filled with body parts, too — which is where the mystery comes in.

The second mystery novel featuring Anchorage-based detective Cara Kennedy sees our sleuth returning to the village of Point Metier — where everyone lives in a single high-rise. 

She’s there to investigate the deaths of her husband and son — both apparently killed by wild animals. The village is the home of a number of eccentric characters, and it’s soon plain to Cara that a few of them know more about the deaths than they are willing to admit.

Heavy drinking and not entirely competent Sitka PI, Cecil Younger, makes his debut in this Shamus-Award winning mystery. The hungover gumshoe is hired by a Tlingit woman to investigate the death of her son, a local park ranger. 

Younger will soon find himself caught up in a world of legend, myth, and mayhem.  A brilliant start to what is now an eight-book series.