Kirkus Review
Musher Jessie Arnold (The Serpent's Trail, 2004, etc.) finds herself in an Alaskan version of And Then There Were None, except that, luckily for her, it's And Then There Were Some Left Over. On remote Five Finger Island in the Frederick Sound, Laurie Trevino and Jim Beal are restoring a historic lighthouse. Laurie calls to ask her friend Jessie's boyfriend, State Trooper Alex Jensen, for advice about some unnamed problem on the island, but misses him. Since the island measures three acres altogether, with some special bugs as the only permanent residents, how big could the problem be? Deciding to join them for a weekend restoration work party, Jessie heads to Peterson, in South Alaska. While she's waiting for Jim and his boat to pick her up, Jessie runs into (or is it vice versa?) Karen Emerson, a frightened young woman on the run from a stalker who tracked her to Peterson. Jessie invites her to join the work party, where she's confident Karen will be protected by the isolation. Their first morning on the island, Karen discovers the bludgeoned body of a young fisherman wearing the stalker's coat. Phones and radios disabled and the boat sunk, Jessie and her friends are trapped on the island with a killer. Anticlimactic and tediously expository, Henry keeps getting in the way of a perennial throat-catcher and a great setting. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
At loose ends because she is unable to race her dogs this season due to an injury, Jessie Arnold heads to Five Finger Light Island to help friends restore an old lighthouse. On the way to the island, Jessie meets Karen Emerson, who is on the run from a persistent stalker, and invites her along on the trip. Once on the island, Jessie's idyllic getaway turns deadly as a body is found, a woman disappears, and an extensive search of the tiny island fails to find her. Jessie and her companions realize they are on their own when they discover that all means of communicating with the outside world are either missing or destroyed. Alternating chapters from Jessie's and the stalker's points of view keep motives hidden and readers guessing as the plot moves briskly along. The unspoiled Alaskan setting, and Jessie and her boyfriend Alex's somewhat uneasy relationship, add to this eleventh in the series. --Sue O'Brien Copyright 2005 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Unable to race her dogs owing to a knee injury, Jessie Arnold, renowned Iditarod musher, accepts an invitation to join a group restoring an old lighthouse on Alaska's Inside Passageway, even though she's just gotten back together with ex-boyfriend Alex Jensen. On the way to the three-acre island, Karen Emerson, trying to evade a stalker, interjects herself into Jessie's life. It is a cat-and-mouse mystery after Jessie awakens and finds a dead body the first morning on the island; volunteers then succumb, one death at a time. The deliberate pace of Staci Snell's precise reading magnifies the overabundance of detail in this weak entry in Henry's Jessie Arnold series. Buy for demand.-Sandy Glover, Camas P.L., WA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.