A review by nikchick
Play With Fire by Dana Stabenow

4.0

I almost skipped this book because of the negative reviews I skimmed on Goodreads. I am glad I didn't. Each book in the series reveals more of Kate's past, fleshes out the secondary characters in the book and builds on the happenings in previous stories and this novel was no different. Most of the negative reviews, it turns out, are from people made uncomfortable by the casting of a reclusive community of fundamentalist evolution-denying book burners in a villainous light, or the characters' meditations on how the Christian religion affected native populations (through boarding schools, through missionaries insisting cultural iconography equaled blasphemy and idolatry) and the book's secondary cast members. For some reason the previous books focusing on corrupt environmental practices or Kate's prolonged musings about the seduction of working the oil fields never caused a spate of reviews asking why the author has such an axe to grind, but make a fringe religious group the baddies and readers suddenly get the vapors. Well, I had no such reaction and look forward to more Kate Shugak in my future.