Adriana Steele and her white husky Blue are hot on the scent of a missing person. Tragically, what they find is a body. The search-and-rescue dog handler doesn’t know it, but the dead woman is the latest victim of a serial killer. The Alaska wilderness provides plenty of locations to dispose of bodies.

ALASKA SHOWDOWN introduces Officer Levi Wicks, the first person to put together recent deaths with a previous set of cold cases. With his own background sadness, the divorced man spends more time at work than socialising, so he and Adriana have worked together several times. On this occasion though, the magnitude of the crimes they begin to uncover makes for a dangerous situation. The killer has not stopped, and has no intention of being stopped.  

One crime after another follows, with Adriana frequently more concerned for her two dogs than herself. I enjoyed the tale, which swings between teamwork and desperate action, with some calmer moments when the two determined people start to bond though shared circumstances. The setting is remote enough and small-town caring enough that we can visualise the ‘Raven Pass Search and Rescue’ series and its cast clearly. I particularly like the details of searching with dogs, both when injured hikers and cadavers are being traced. If there is anything I don’t like, it’s an action scene which occurs when we know characters and motivations pretty well, so we shouldn’t need an extra paragraph of motivation thought in between each movement, slowing down the action. I’m particularly pleased that we don’t get in-head thoughts of the criminal, which make many serial killer tales too heavy and unpleasant for me.

The romantic suspense genre is enriched by this author Sarah Varland, who is a new author to me but writes with assurance and style. As ALASKA SHOWDOWN is a lightly inspirational novel, the romance is suitable for teens to adults.