Books published by Epicenter Press (WA)

Murder at forty Below is a gritty yet fascinating account of many of Alaska''s most notorious and unusual murder cases. Drawn from police files, eyewitness accounts, and news reports, these stories introduce extreme criminals in an extreme land. Meet church-going big-game hunter Robert Hanson, who stalked topless dancers for more than a decade, and Robert Stroud, a construction worker who killed a bartender in Juneau, later to become the nationally known "Birdman of Alcatraz."

One year after his world is devastated in HURRICANE BLUES, Jack Connor is stitching his life back together. He now manages an open-air drinking establishment named The Sandbar across the road from Folly Beach, a shabby-chic tourist town.

Recovering from knee surgery that will cause her to miss the upcoming dogsled racing season, champion "musher" Jessie Arnold feels empty and bored -- so she grabs an opportunity to fill her days manning the Iditarod booth at the Alaska State Fair. But murder becomes an attraction here as well -- an especially brutal one -- when the corpse of a small-time hoodlum slain by a double-blade axe blow to the skull turns up on the fairgrounds. Jessie shouldn't get involved, having already seen too much violent death in her lifetime. But strange connections are linking the killing with a child's kidnapping . . . and with the sudden disappearance of her own beloved lead sled dog. Soon friends old and new will be pulled in as well when the unthinkable occurs: Jessie herself vanishes without a trace.

In the lingering chill of the early Alaskan spring, famed "musher" Jessie Arnold confronts the charred remains of a favorite local pub, destroyed by a suspicious blaze that claimed an innocent, unsuspecting life. This lull between racing seasons is meant to be a time of grueling training and conditioning for Jessie and her dogsled team-but instead it has become a time of fear. Because the burning has only begun, and its flames will scar and blister Jessie's world in ways she can barely imagine. And in the wake of more death, her next race will be one for survival-as she struggles to determine whether a desperate friend is a terrified victim... or a killer.

Women were outnumbered 25 to 1 in the Klondike Gold Rush. Thousands more followed their men''s dreams to Alaska in the century that followed. This created the myth that Alaska was a "man''s country." Not surprisingly, this idea came from men. In "Alaska Women Write," women dispel the myth. They learn to fly, work on the pipeline, teach in the Bush, raft wild rivers, discover a love for sport-fishing, and tangle with moose and grizzly bears. These energetic, thoughtful, and very personal stories are written from the heart with passion, humor, self-discovery, and a love of the north.

Voice of the Anchorage Times columnist Tom Brennan, author of the best-selling Murder at 40 Below, retells the most dramatic and exciting stories from the confidential files of Alaska''s police detectives who investigate murder, mayhem, crimes of passion and greed, and plenty of criminal stupidity throughout the northern state.

It's like having four flyfishing girl friends and an aunt who's an expert flyfisher teaching you about the equipment you'll need, what flies to use, and how to cast. This books will convince you that flyfishing is more fun and challenging than other kinds of fishing and that it is definitely not a sport just for boys.

On a foggy afternoon in September of 1982 the Investor, a salmon fishing vessel, was engulfed in flames near the tiny village of Craig, Alaska. All efforts to stop the blaze were repulsed by the heat and fury of fire—until the blaze until it had run its course. Eight people, including a pregnant woman and two small children, were missing.On the charred wreck of the Investor, troopers hoped to find evidence that the fire was accidental, and that the crew and family were away from the scene. Instead, they found bullet-ridden bodies. The investigation of the case and arrest of a former crewmember of the Investor became a nationwide sensation, with headlines appearing in the New York Times and People Magazine. John Kenneth Peel, a Bellingham fisherman was the center of the investigation and eventual trials for murder and arson. Convoluted motivations, family secrets, a lawyer bent on protecting his client, family members of the victims seeking answers swirl into a story only one person can know—and he isn’t telling.Leland Hale, author of Butcher, Baker: The True Account of an Alaskan Serial Killer, meticulously researched the events of the Investor tragedy, and when alibis don’t line up and witnesses doubt their own memory, Hale’s narrative pulls the unraveling story together into a book that will keep your attention long after you turn the final page.

Alaska is a great place to visit… and a bad place to die It is said that when the first snow of early winter-the "termination dust"-starts to fall, it's time for visitors to leave Alaska's wonders behind. For some, it's already too late. Jim Hampton's Yukon vacation takes a turn for the worse when he discovers a prospector's diary from the 1800s. And it dies when the rugged outdoorsman is arrested for the gruesome slaying of a controversial ex-Senator. But Alex Jensen isn't convinced of Hampton's guilt. And the dedicated state trooper is ready to track the bitter truth through the treacherous snows of the Yukon wilderness-and in the pages of a mysterious, hundred-year-old journal, which describes crimes remarkably similar... and deadly.