In this unpredictable and absorbing debut, Stein intriguingly blurs the line between legend and conventional reality. Two years ago in a remote Alaskan village, Jenna Rosen's five-year-old son, Bobby, fell out of a boat and drowned, and Jenna was unable to save him. Unable to come to terms with her grief, Jenna leaves her husband in Seattle and returns to the site of the tragedy. Once there, she encounters an assortment of sinisterly quirky characters and learns much about the Indian part of her heritage. She soon comes to a startling conclusion: either she's losing her mind, or her son's soul has been abducted by the kushtaka‘Tlingit spirits that are half man, half otter‘and can be rescued only by a shaman. As Jenna seeks both to lay her son's soul to rest and to quiet her own guilt and grief, Stein weaves a moving tale that ably charts the gaps between rationalistic and animistic worldviews. Certain elements of the Tlingit legends may remind readers of Dracula lore: human blood breaks kushtaka spells; domestic dogs are their enemies. Occasional shifts to present-tense narration are jarring intrusions, but, for most of the novel, Stein's restrained prose is a good vehicle for Jenna's examination of the nature of religious faith and belief. (Mar.) FYI: Stein, a documentary filmmaker, is the great-grandson of a Tlingit Indian. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Still grieving two years after the death of Bobby, her five-year-old son, Jenna Rosen takes off one day, leaving her husband behind. Heading north from Seattle, she finds herself on a ferry to Wrangell, Alaska, where her grandmother, a Tlingit Indian, lived. Wrangell is also near Thunder Bay, the fishing resort where Bobby drowned. On the ferry, Jenna is given a necklace with a charm representing a kushtaka, and an old women tells her the Tlingit legend--that the kushtaka are shape-shifting soul stealers who inhabit a kind of twilight region between the living and the dead. In Wrangell, Jenna finds some solace in her friendship with a local fisherman. At the same time, strange events help convince her that Bobby has been adopted by the kushtaka, and she tracks down anyone, including a shaman, who can lead her to him. Her efforts culminate in a terrifying encounter. Though the novel has some elements of a supernatural thriller, it is actually stronger as a story about grieving and coming to terms with loss. --Mary Ellen Quinn