Excellent book. Very good storyline with interesting sub-plots. Very detailed and exciting during action sections. Believable characters. Educational - learned some things. Great Alaska descriptions. Would think that someone could pick this book up for a movie or, perhaps, TV. Looking forward to reading a sequel. Worth reading. Good job, Mister Askew. Keep writing.

4 stars for a page turner private eye book set in Alaska. Race Warren, a private detective from Tennessee, is hired by Claire Billings to find her estranged husband. She tells Race that they went to counseling, but it didn't work because she blamed him. Now she has realized her mistakes and wants to reconcile with her husband. She says that her husband went to Alaska.

Race goes to Alaska and gets some leads on Billings. But then someone tries to kill Race and he realizes and this could be much more than a missing persons case. He does find Billings and finds out that Billings is looking for his daughter, Carrie, kidnapped by a sex trafficking ring.

There is a native tradition called shapeshifting that is also an element in this mystery.

Some other characters in the book:
Dr. Mark Dunbar, scientist studying native culture
Dr. Jonathan Hartley, Professor of Anthropology
There is a bittersweet ending. I recommend it to Alaska/private eye mystery fans.

Thanks to Covenant Books and J. L. Askew for sending me this book through LibraryThin

Private investigator Race Warren is hired by Claire Billings to search for her missing ex-husband, Ron. Unfortunately, Warren doesn't have much information to go off of, just that Ron went to Alaska for work and did not return. So Warren flies out to Alaska, briefly stopping in Anchorage before heading deeper into the Alaskan interior, towards a small town named Ataqsut. But when Warren comes face to face with an assassin upon arriving in Alaska, he realizes this is much more than a missing person's case. 

Warren eventually finds Billings, who reveals that his time in Alaska has been spent searching for his missing daughter, Carrie. Carrie is caught up in a sex trafficking ring run by the Russian mafia and so Warren teams up with Billings to rescue her. This is very much a typical crime/suspense novel balanced out with fast-paced action scenes that help drive the plot forward. The novel has supernatural elements with an interesting subplot involving a group of scientists that Warren meets while in Ataqsut, who uncover a secret cult involved with animal shapeshifting. 

I would recommend this for crime novel fans who are looking for a read with a unique twist.

Alaska Deadly is a 432-page, 27-chapter, and March 2023 book, with titled chapters. The protagonist, Racine Warren, is apparently modeled on its American author, J. L. Askew—he has an upcoming sequel—whose author bio lists social work and a psychology degree.

A social worker and psychologist too, Warren is thrust into a fast-paced private investigation whose near-fatal dangers begin when his soon-to-be side-kick Ron Billing’s estranged wife, Claire, hires the private eye to trace her missing husband.

With scant information and forced to improvise progressively, Warren travels to Anchorage City and its surrounding areas—in the U.S. state of Alaska—where he (alongside strangers-turned-friends): eliminates his would-be assassin; has a conflict, and teams up, with the regional police department; learns about, and later on, witnesses a deadly werewolf attack (invoked by an ancient sub-tribe) whose mythical aspect interests a visiting scientific research team of friendly scholars; contacts the local natives; dramatically finds the secluded Billings who, it turns out, had been plotting how, and they manage, to flee his daughter Carrie from a murderous Russian mafia-related prostitution ring; evade pursuing assassins; raid a crime boss’s residence; and hears scholarly evidence of the werewolf, which nearly mauls him during a face-off while protecting vulnerable persons.

Themes: shamanism, werewolf mythology, shapeshifting, anthropology, animal biology, social science, mysticism, detective work, police procedures, victimization, superstition, native culture, occultism, folk religion, animal worship, Russian mafia, beast fable, animism, mass hysteria, conservationism and wildlife preservation, pseudoscience, isolation, deprivation, child abuse, human trafficking, forced labor, supernatural death, organized crime, sex work, and social work.

The first edition of his debut novel, Deadly Alaska has a flip side. There are numerous cases of comma splices, missing commas between conjunctions, difficult words, dialog tags, and huge sentences with too many commas. Others include: some long chapters (chapter one has 18 pages), incomplete sentences, missing exclamations, unnecessarily wordy and soulless at times, repetitive scenes, run-on sentences, adjectives, awkward phrasing, under-described characters, and some over-explained scenes.

In the beginning, some sections are forgettable. Although Racine Warren is the protagonist, he is often overshadowed by other characters. The author should have included a little romance. There are loose ends, including the unexplained connection between the Amorok and the mafia.

The author’s overindulgence in regional syntax denies the book a much-needed international appeal. Slow at first, the book gradually gathers pace and becomes super-exciting, with frequent bursts of suspense.

I loved this book! I went into it expecting kind of a typical action/thriller book but it was so much more!

Based on the synopsis I expected a few twists and surprises but this blew my expectations out of the water! It has everything from organized crime to cults to the paranormal. And the action is basically nonstop once it gets started.

A few times I struggled to follow what was going on because so much was going on! But after rereading the section I was able to get back on track. I also enjoyed most of the characters. Dr Dunbar kind of got on my nerves a few times but I don't expect to love every character in every book.

All in all its a fast paced, action packed book with more twists than I can count. If you're a fan of thriller stories I highly recommend!

A chilling and fascinating supernatural thriller. I loved how multifaceted this story was, with Russian crime families and supernatural theories and indigenous lore.

Askew paints chilling scenes without laboring over the details. The pacing sets a perfect tone for each event and I found myself wishing I could read faster and slower at the same time to get to the conclusion but savor such a well-crafted story. It was thrilling to realize this is just number one in the story. I'm looking forward to reading more!

J. L. Askew's "Alaska Deadly: A Novel" features Private Investigator Race Warren's nervy events in Alaska, where gloaming activities and chilling disclosures regarding stringent ritualistic rites, werewolf occurrences and heart-wrecking exercises by proscribed cliques await him.

Warren has been tasked to track down Ron Billings, a one-time army official who to Warren's awe is found undertaking a surreptitious operation of seeking his missing daughter's whereabouts. Warren melds his skill with Billings', and they jointly roll out to tumble down the cruel and barbarous Russian mobsters, whose lucrative abduction enterprise kept on unleashing pure dread to its target populace. As the read advances, readers will come to relish a rumoured aberration regarding some locals vampiric powers, as Askew's masterstroke through which the fable swivels.

This novel was a surprise for me! As I was looking for a new book to read, this one came up as something I may like. This book is all about a private investigator named Race Warren. He must venture to Alaska in order to find one of his client's husbands, Ron Billings. While he is in Alaska, Warren discovers that someone is protecting Billings and he is going to have to work hard to find him since someone doesn't want him found.

While he is in Alaska, Race meets Dr. Dunbar. He is actually studying some of the ancient beliefs in the area and these beliefs are what he thinks led to a murder. A native woman was killed and it could have been because of these beliefs. This is when Dunbar and Race become fast friends and Race believes that his case could have something to do with Billings.

Alaska Deadly, by J.L. Askew, is a crime thriller with supernatural elements. The book follows Race Warren, a psychologist and private investigator who is looking to establish himself in his field. But his simple missing person case quickly becomes more than it originally seemed. Warren must explore Alaska’s mountains, forest, and settlements as he confronts Russian crime and unnatural beasts.

Alaska Deadly truly separates itself from other thrillers with its setting. The Alaskan wilderness and local life color the novel. It feels realistic and whimsical. The reader navigates from the dive bar that Warren visits to a compound in the mountains that Billings scouts. Each location feels real and natural due to J.L. Askew’s clever descriptions.