Red Line

Rating:
Summary: Awesome Alaskan amateur sleuth tale
Review:

Alaskan aviator Taylor Morgan enjoys her job working for Lifeline Air because she feels she is making a contribution to society. She flies a twin engine plane whose usual passengers are sick or injured individuals from remote villages needing to go to urban medical centers. While on vacation, to pay back a favor to the company that provided her with her start, Taylor accepts a job that returns her to her own stomping grounds in Bethel. The job is simply transporting supplies and people from one village to another.

As she flies among the Yup'ik villages, she notices the large number of alcohol related tragedies in an area that is supposedly dry. She concludes that a gang is illegally smuggling alcohol into this forbidden zone. Taylor decides to ferret out the identities of the culprits even though her adversaries will kill her to remain anonymous.

RED LINE, the second work in the breathtaking Morgan series, is as wonderful a work as the opener, DEAD STICK. The panoramic beauty, the stark wilderness, and the huge geographic landscape appear real due to Megan Mallory Rust's ability as a descriptive story teller. Readers will guess who the villains are early in the tale, but the entertainment lies in observing Taylor track them down even as they try to eliminate her. Ms. Rust achieves the level of excellence attained by Dana Stabenow and Sue Henry in providing the audience a superb look at the last American frontier within a winning who-done-it.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Not as engaging as I hoped
Review: I read both Red Line and Dead Stick and while I liked them I found them both missing something I enjoy in mysteries and similar books. The storyline is interesting and plausible in both cases, and the writing is skillful, however the character development is lacking. Taylor Morgan, the main character remains two dimensional as the stories progress. I didn't feel as though I knew her any better at the end of the second book than I did when I opened the first one. I really enjoy stories set in Alaska and I've read everything by Christopher Lane, Sue Henry and Dana Stabenow so I was hoping for more engaging characters.

Rating:
Summary: Love for Alaska still shines through
Review: Megan Mallory Rust's love of both Alaska and flying still dominates this second novel. She weaves a beautiful tapestry of the land and the skills required to survive as a pilot in its unforgiving ruggedness. However, while her heroine seems competent in the air, her invesetigative skills still leave much to be desired. The red herrings were not quite as obvious as they were in the first book, but the villain was apparent to anyone who reads a lot of mysteries. Rust relies on dropping the solution out of thin air, so to speak, instead of creating investigative acumen in her character. Here, it's the heroine impulsively walking into the one store in all of Anchorage where she could find the answers she needed. Still, it's a fine second book. I love regional and small town mysteries, and Rust delivers with her vivid descriptions of Alaska. She improves with each new book. I see she has a third one on the way. I can hardly wait.