When the sun rises in the Arctic after having been gone for months, the effect is one of time blindness and disorientation. In Rebecca Wright Stevens's gripping legal thriller-memoir, Sisters of the Midnight Sun, this unwavering beauty became the staging ground for a crime as chilling as the permafrost. The bodies of two well-known sisters, Bernice and Wanda Ipalook, were discovered outside of Utqiagvik (formerly known as Barrow, Alaska), leading to more than a forensic puzzle for those drawn into the investigation.
The account follows Stevens's time as a tenacious defense attorney assigned to Amos Lane, who already had pending assault and theft charges. What began as a straightforward criminal case spiraled into a complex web of politics and historical trauma. Stevens skillfully sets the scene, detailing the claustrophobia of a town where everyone is a witness and no one is a stranger. Perhaps the most compelling attribute of Sisters of the Midnight Sun is Stevens's transparency regarding her relationship with the Arctic and its community. She mourned her limitations as a legal practitioner, even as her bonds with the people there deepened.
Sisters of the Midnight Sun is for readers who grew up on the razor-sharp courtroom dramas of Scott Turow or the high-stakes atmospheric tension of John Grisham, delivering an extra bite that feels like a bracing breath of sub-zero air. It provides the satisfaction of a legal thriller while serving as an insightful investigation into a territory those in the Lower 48 rarely see clearly. This is a haunting, expertly crafted reminder that the law is only as strong as the people who uphold it. --Elizabeth DeNoma, executive editor, DeNoma Literary Services, Seattle, Wash.