Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780425162613
ISBN number: 0425162613
Label: Berkley
Manufacturer: Berkley
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 256
Printing Date: April 01, 1998
Publishing house: Berkley
Sale Popularity Level: 112717
Studio: Berkley
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Product Description:
April in Alaska is the period of spring thaw, what the locals call breakup. For Kate, this year's meltdown brings nothing but mayhem. First, the snow uncovers a dead body near Kate's home. Than a woman is killed in a suspicious bear attack. Kate is drawn further into the destruction of breakup - and into tha path of a murderer...
• Winner of the Edgar Award for her book A Cold Day for Murder
• The subsequent book in the acclaimed Kate Shugak mystery series
• Stabenow's hardcover, Killing Grounds, will be on sale from G.P. Putnam's Sons June 1, 1998
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Rated by buyers 
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I have been a Dana Stabenow fan for the last 10 years. Her Kate Shugak series is so suspensful, touching, romantic and informative that I cannot stop reading her books. My friends have all borrowed my copies of her books and just rave about how well the books are written, the information about Alaskan life is exceptional, each page is full of suspense and intrigue. I even got my husband to read her books and he's addicted too! (that's saying alot since he normally only reads golf magazines) Can't wait for her subsequent book.
The reason I ordered the Breakup book was to replace the one that fell apart from reading and rereading.
Rated by buyers -
Terrific book! 7th in Stabenow's series featuring Kate Shugak, a resourceful, independent, courageous, and beautiful Aleutian descendant of Wonder Woman - remember Wonder Woman, anybody? This is Stabenow's funniest book yet - in my mind, it invites comparison to Janet Evanovich's books about Jersey. The heroines are not that much alike but the zany characters are similar - another writer who comes to mind in this context is Carl Hiassen. My previous favorite among Dana's books was Blood Will Tell, which has a much more serious focus, with an unforgettable portrait of Alaskan Indians and of Kate's grandmother/tribal leader, Ekaterina Shugak (Emaa). But I loved this one too, even though it's quite a different reading experience.
Compared to Hiassen and Evanovich, Stabenow's humorous mode is less over the top...her style in dialogue and description is wry with a touch of the laconic cowboy. The title refers to the season when Alaska "melts into a 586,412-square-mile pile of slush" - not quite winter and not quite spring - "it's too late for the snow machine and too early for the truck." And everyone with cabin fever comes out to play, including the bears, the neighbors feuding over the boundary between their farms, the parents from Massachusetts determined to lure their precious daughter (Kate's friend) back from her unfashionable life as a sleddog trainer and racer in Alaska.
We in Pennsylvania know about this season, but fortunately we don't have it quite as long. Pennsylvanians will get a kick out of the brief description of Pa. tourists kicking back in Bernie's Roadhouse, where the décor features a severed middle finger preserved in a bottle of Jose Cuervo Gold. Stabenow's characters and dialogue zing off the page and bring the whole crazy crew to roaring life.
There IS a murder in this book, but that story is so skillfully woven into the comedy that it seems like a subplot. Discovery of the murderer is no surprise, and neither is the independent action that Kate takes to bring frontier justice. But the final scenes, in which we see Kate reluctantly fulfilling her Emaa's wishes by becoming involved in working for the good of the Native American community, connects us back to the earlier books and points to an interesting future for Kate. Can't wait to read it, Dana! Thank you!
Rated by buyers 
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Stabenow manages to capture perfectly the chaotic feel of Alaska life. I worked up there several summers and it felt like I was back in one of the frontier towns that I remember fondly. This is pretty far into the Shugak series, but a librarian recommended that I start with this book. I found that I did not need to read any of Stabenow's other books in order to fall in love with Shugak and the series. Since then I have pretty much read them all and I would say that none of them quite matches this one. So if you have not read any Shugak mysteries yet, this might be a good place to start.
What's so unusal about this book while comparing it to both others in the series as well as other mysteries, is that it pretty much doesnt have a mystery. Instead what makes this such a fun read is that you are lead on an excursion into the life of the protagonist that is well worth following along upon.
Rated by buyers -
As readers of this hilarious entry in the wonderful Kate Shugak series now know, Breakup is the time between the frozen solid Alaska winter and the spring--a time when the potholes reach several feet deep, the slush competes with the mud, the weather is unpredictable--and the bears wake up crabby and hungry from their long hibernation. It's also a time, apparently, when the locals take leave of their senses, and the most mundane errand is run at one's own risk.
Kate sees most of the action in this novel from the floor of her local pub, where stray bullets from angry housewives are flying at random; in the mud, where she is knocked down several times by everyone from friend to foe to bear; and from her house, which just happens to be partially demolished by an engine that has dropped from the sky off a jetliner. And that's just in the very first few pages!
Even wonder-dog Mutt is cranky in this truly funny look at all the regulars as they emerge--like the bears--from their long winter hibernation. There's a serious undertone dealing with Kate's new and unwanted position as head of tribal affairs, but mostly it's just a wild romp as we get to know our favorite Alaskans maybe a bit too well.
Much recommended!
Rated by buyers 
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This book reads like someone's fantasy life. The protagonist, Kate Shugak, never makes mistakes, never loses an argument, and never has to compromise. She can terrify men with a glance and stop armed combat with her bare hands. She can also seduce a cold-blooded murderer and hypnotize a room full of men with a change in her voice. She claims to love men, but doesn't "expect much of them." The only man she maybe-loves, from many miles away, warms her heart by his casual reply to the report of a bear mauling someone to death, but she ridicules such bravado ("manly-man" behavior) in anyone else. She professes an abiding commitment to her oath to uphold the law, but commits a petty crime, and for petty reasons, minutes later. She rescues an irresponsible husband (for the second time), when he is bound naked, spread-eagled, and gagged, from the rifle of his hysterical wife, but "sides with the tribe" when she tells a state trooper that their children are not in danger.
The book goes on and on this way, asking the reader to believe that a five-foot-tall woman is actually some kind of superbeing, able to cope with any kind of problem, no matter how absurd or wrong-headed her methods might be. If she were real, her mother would be Wonder Woman, and her other mother would be Marilyn. (If it were up to her, I don't think Kate Shugak would _have_ a father.) She can kick ass or make doe eyes, whichever the moment requires, and always with 100% success. Like Alda's "Hawkeye" character, everything always just seems to work out her way. She never has to deal with mistakes or meaningful opposition to her wishes.
This was a really well-written book about a dreadful person living a charmed life. I can easily imagine the audience that makes it such a success. But, I found it so far below credible and so self-indulgent, that I'd give it one star if it weren't for a few snappy scenes that prove Stabenow could be a good writer if she'd only grow up.
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