Bearskin
By James A. Mclaughlin
340 pages
Rice Moore takes a job as caretaker for a remote forest preserve in Virginia. He is trying to leave his troubles with a Mexican cartel behind him. He hopes to disappear into a quiet life where no one can find him. When he discovers a mutilated bear on the premises his new world is upended.
What did it make me think about?
This was a good suspense thriller with an environmental spin. I did think about how the forests are disappearing- but I mainly thought about what was going to happen in the story next….
Should I read it?
I was totally in the mood for a good page-turner so maybe I liked this one more than it warrants- but I did really enjoy it. The setting McLaughlin creates for the novel is a character in itself. His descriptions of the forests really do paint a picture- and that canvas lends itself to this plot.
Quote-
“Within a few minutes, Boger’s mafia theory didn’t seem as far fetched as he’d thought. As most market legit and otherwise had globalized over the past few decades, illegal traffic in wildlife and their body parts had become the fourth-largest black market in the world, behind narcotics, counterfeiting, and human trafficking, generating billions of dollars every year and attracting the participation of terror groups and ‘traditionally drug-oriented criminal enterprises’.”
