(Image from Barnes & Noble)

After her husband dies in a New York City car accident, Anna Pigeon flees urban life for its complete opposite.  As an enforcement ranger at Guadalupe Mountains National Park in the west Texas wilderness, the 39-year-old widow now spends more time communing with nature than anything—or anyone—else.  And it suits her just fine.

While hiking in the park one day, Anna comes across the dead body of a park ranger who appears to have been mauled to death by a mountain lion.  Shocked by the brutality of the apparent attack, Anna can't quite believe what she's seeing.  She didn't know Sheila Drury well, but she does know animals and this "attack" looks staged.  Try as she might to convince her superiors to look into the suspicious death, however, Anna gets exactly nowhere.  Refusing to back off, she launches her own investigation.  Between Drury's push to open the park to the public and her clandestine relationship with another employee, it isn't tough to find people who may have had motive to kill the ranger.  Who actually did the deed?  Anna knows Drury's killer isn't a wild cat but a human who is more vicious and dangerous than any mountain lion.  The question is, can Anna find the murderer before he or she finds Anna?  

     

If this were a movie, it would be rated:

for language (a dozen or so F-bombs plus milder expletives), violence, blood/gore, and mild sexual content

To the FTC, with love:  Another library fine find