Where Annja Almost Gets Frozen

Sacred Ground by Alex Archer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Title #23 in a long-running pulp fiction series, this is an entertaining novel that works great if you just want to read for fun. Especially if you want a character you already know, so you can skip the long exposition that is necessary in stand-alone novels. Annja is an attractive character--intelligent, capable, broad-minded, principled, brave, and empathetic--which makes it a pleasure to jump into another adventure with her.

This one takes place in Canada among the Inuit, with Annja being asked to help facilitate the removal of relics from a burial ground. The tribe has sold some of their land--they needed the cash--and the sacred site is in the way. Legends and myths get involved, the bad guys are hiding their true intentions, and Annja gets caught in the middle.

There are a few plot holes and trouble spots. The biggest is about 2/3 through, when it feels like we're at the end of the story, and the action kinda stops. We pause until the characters decide to go off in another direction and it feels like a separate story. The two parts end up being connected, but it could have used a bit of editing so that the transition made more sense. And the bit about Annja interacting with a polar bear, a scene that was very meaningful but unexplained, felt like it would have a call-back, something putting it into context, but we never saw the bear again. I think the author forgot.

But you turn the page and go on, because these books are about the action. The ending here could have been written by Edgar Rice Burroughs or H. Rider Haggard or Robert E. Howard--pure pulp. And I'm here for it.

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