"colorful amateur sleuth"

She usually takes her RV and her mini dachshund Stretch to the lower Forty-eight during her get away from Alaska's cold. However, this Maxie McNabb decides to stay home in Homer. All the snowbirds have fled south so when Maxie and Stretch walk on the beach she is surprised to meet someone else there. She invites John Walker to dine with her, some friends and her son. John seems evasive about his life before he came to Homer.

The next day Maxie is stunned to learn John killed himself and he had no ID on him. When she goes to Anchorage, Maxie repeatedly sees a woman following her but the woman makes no attempt at direct contact. Back home, Maxie sees her door ajar and smells perfume inside. A woman arrives soon afterward insisting she is John's sister Amy, but vanishes before Maxie persuades her to talk with the police. Anxious with fear, Maxie tries to stay ahead of the woman because she has a bad vibe about her..

Alaska comes alive in this colorful amateur sleuth mystery starring an intrepid female sexagenarian who has the energy to light up the Arctic during the extended night. Saddened by John's death, Maxie moves on although events (and people) pull her right back into a deadly scenario. The support cast is solid, Stretch is a darling and the heroine super, but Alaska is the superstar of Sue Henry's terrific THE END OF THE ROAD.

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted November 20, 2009

Summary

New from the multiple award-winning author of The Refuge, whose "grasp of storytelling and strong characterization matches her with Sue Grafton." (Colorado Springs Gazette)

Maxie McNabb and her miniature dachshund, Stretch, are just back from their latest adventure when a murder shatters the quiet in their hometown of Homer, Alaska. Now it's up to Maxie to find the killer—a search that leads her to a place called "the end of the road."