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Fiction. Mystery. Suspense. Thriller. HTML:In this mystery in Nevada Barrâ??s New York Times bestselling series, District Park Ranger Anna Pigeon is betrayed by nature itself, as a most unnatural evil stalks its prey in the pristine Westâ?¦Straddling the border between Montana and Canada lies the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Parkâ??Annaâ??s home away from home when she is sent on a cross-training assignment to study grizzly bears. Along with bear researcher Joan Rand and a volatile, unpredictable teenage boy, Anna hikes the back country, seeking signs of bear. But the tables are turned on their second night out, when one of the beasts comes looking for them. Daybreak finds the boy missing, a camper mutilated, and Anna caught in a grip of fear, painfully aware that her lifelong bond with nature has inexplicabl… (more)
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And that’s what it was. But why was it there? Because the new owner was going to ship it to a park where it would be hunted and killed. The boy who loved the bear and felt almost as a brother to the bear decided to let him go in this protected park. The new owner and step-brother of the boy came after him. The bear hated the older brother and because the woman was wearing his coat when she came across the boy and the bear, he charged and accidentally killed her. He scratched her face and the boy had to take the rest of the flesh off to hide the fact that it was bear claws. Much larger than the Grizzly bears native to that part of the world. It would be a dead-giveaway and Balthazar would the destroyed.
In the end he’s not destroyed but given to a man who trains wild animals for movies. And the orphaned boy is taken on as an apprentice as well. The older brother goes to jail for kidnapping and attempted murder.
The writing was pretty good. Just enough scientific detail to help readers understand the plot and characters but not too much. Same with the environmentalist pitch, it wasn’t over done and preachy. Anna was an interesting character. She was a lot like me – not terribly appreciative of most of humanity and also childfree. One of the best lines in the book was something like. “Another reason not to have children list – it’s so disturbing when wild animals eat them.” Hilarious!!
The mystery was a teensy bit convoluted, but that may have had something to do with the fact that I was trying to listen to the story at work and everyone around me was in a highly jovial mood and getting loud, so I might have missed some bits and pieces. I will take a break from the series now. I've had two in a short period of time and I rarely read or listen to books in a series back to back. I do like to mix it up.
Four there's bars in them thar woods beans.....
In this installment Anna is stationed at Glacier National Park where she is helping with a grizzly bear DNA project. On their first night out their camp is
Actually it was a little bit of both and it takes Anna many false starts to get to the heart of the matter. She wants to clear Rory whom she is sure wasn't involved even though it appears he had plenty of motive. Given how poorly Rory treats Anna, I'm surprised she was so driven to do the right thing.
For the astute reader, all the clues are there. They're early on in the book. If you pay attention you can solve the mystery well before Anna does. I got close, although I didn't have the why of Mrs. Van Slyke's death sorted out.
That night, in a scene that raised my skepticism (having read too many mysteries, I suppose) she and her tent mate are attacked by a huge bear who doesn’t act in the way most bears would (according to the bear expert along on the trip.) Rory, the other volunteer in his own tent hightailed it out of there and is discovered some miles away in rather sad shape, but only after Anna and Joanna report his disappearance does a search reveal the body of a murdered woman who happens to be Rory’s stepmother. Without giving away the plot, I will say only that numerous connections and suspects provide the elements to a puzzle that keeps the rangers, struggling with other responsibilities which include bear scat analysis, bedeviled. Unlike some lesser mysteries the answer does not fall from the sky, but is compiled through careful analysis of evidence.
Several reviewers have complained about what they considered to be excessive detail with regard to bear DNA, the bear lure, etc., but for me it’s those kinds of details that I find tantalizing but that’s perhaps since I so enjoy collecting information from what I read as well as entertainment.
My suspicion of anthropomorphism that worried me in the beginning was not borne out in the end. Satisfactory.