The north has always held an undeniable appeal for writers. In researching my Yukon-set Rockton series, I visited Dawson City, a town of just under fifteen hundred with historic sites dedicated to three famous author residents: Jack London, Pierre Berton and Robert Service.
Perhaps no genre is better suited to the region than mystery. The north is a wild place dotted with pockets of civilization holding firm against the best Mother Nature can throw at them. Endless dark, harsh winters and glorious summers that compensate for their brevity with days that stretch past midnight. The north can be rugged and desolate and achingly beautiful all at once. It’s also a place of extreme isolation, invoking a sense of inescapable despair in some and a sense of incredible community in others.
All this is fodder for a unique type of mystery novel, playing on that wildness and that isolation and that tight-knit community. The setting for my Rockton books—a hidden small town where people go to disappear—ramps this up an extra notch with true isolation, a town severed from the outside world.
For the reader, mysteries set in the north provide a glimpse into a world fraught with the sort of danger our ancestors dealt with on a daily basis. If we cannot get there in person, we can visit in books, curled up by a winter’s fire, with our cup of cocoa and our book, imagining a much different and more dangerous world. If you’re looking to make that trip this winter, here are a few suggestions for the voyage.
The Kate Shugak series by Dana Stabenow
When I think of northern North American mysteries, this is always the first that comes to mind. Stabenow’s dark and delightful series is set in a fictional Alaskan national park. The long-running series begins with A Cold Day for Murder.
The John Cardinal series by Giles Blunt
Shout-out to a fellow Canadian author here for a series I loved. This one is set in the fictional town of Algonquin Bay in northern Ontario and was recently developed as the TV show Cardinal. The series begins with Forty Words for Sorrow.
The Ice Princess by Camilla Läckberg
This was my first introduction to Nordic noir. A young woman is found dead in a bathtub of frozen water. A friend of the family teams up with the detective assigned to the case. The pair return for another outing in The Preacher.
Smilla’s Sense of Snow by Peter Høeg
Another of my early introductions to Scandinavian crime. What stands out strongest in my memory is, well, the sense of snow—in Høeg’s novel, winter is a true character as well as a metaphor. Smilla herself is a unique heroine, cool and complex and definitely memorable.
The Jessie Arnold series by Sue Henry
This Alaskan set series began with Murder on the Iditarod Trail, centering on the iconic dog-sledding race. The series went on to a dozen mysteries featuring racer Jessie and her state trooper partner.
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon
I only recently read this after having it on my TBR list for years, and I was pleasantly surprised to find it set in Alaska. While the book doesn’t deal with the wild setting itself, Chabon’s alt-history detective novel is a fascinating look at how history could have gone if the Slattery Report had been implemented.
