I’m speaking with the author and part-time lighthouse keeper just after the re-publication of her book Alaska Highway Two-Step. First published in 1993, the unusual mystery novel is set in part along the legendary route and the release of its new edition coincides with the 75th anniversary of the Highway’s completion this year. A road of expansive views, vast wilderness and remote truck stops sprinkled between our northern communities, the Alaska Highway is also littered with an entangled history of calamities and hard-won achievements. It is novelists like Woodward, who mix their creative art with this past, that help keep those stories alive.
A captivating travel-mystery novel about the road to adventure and self-discovery on the Alaska Highway.
Book Description
“…one of those rare books—a satisfying mystery that has no criminal content whatsoever … even the most hidebound mystery reader is likely to be delighted by this well-written and intriguing tale.”
—The Toronto Star
“…a worthy successor to her short fiction collection … Woodward interweaves several intriguing narrative threads into this intense first-person tale of [Mercy’s] actual and mental journeys to discover family, past and present, that will give her life wholeness…enhancing this narrative is the delightfully witty voice of Mercy Brown.”
—Canadian Literature
When Mercy Brown, a reluctant psychic and freelance journalist, discovers her late Aunt Ginger’s diaries, packed with early Canadian dance history and a painful past, she realizes that she has two mysteries to sort out. Mercy Brown and her dog Sadie embark on a writing assignment up the Alaska Highway.
A BC bestseller, Alaska Highway Two-Step was selected as one of The Globe & Mail‘s Top 100 Books. Caroline Woodward’s sharp wit and unerring ability to create warm, believable characters make this a delightful novel of the North.
