Cougar Claw (A Sam Rivers Mystery, 2) - Softcover

Griffith, Cary J.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1647550815 ISBN 13: 9781647550813

Verlag: Adventure Publications, 2022

Inhaltsangabe

In this outdoors mystery, special agent Sam Rivers investigates the unexplained—and very unlikely—cougar attack that killed a wealthy business owner.

The sighting of a cougar in the Minnesota River Valley, outside the Twin Cities, is incredibly rare. A deadly cougar attack on a human in this area is about as likely as getting struck by lightning—twice. Yet when wealthy business owner Jack McGregor is found dead, the physical evidence seems incontrovertible.

Sheriff Rusty Benson brings in Sam Rivers, a US Fish & Wildlife (USFW) special agent and a wildlife biologist, to examine the scene and sign off on his conclusions. But Sam’s experiences have given him a penchant for understanding predators, and he has more questions than answers.

Details begin to surface that challenge law enforcement’s open-and-shut case. To find justice, Sam must take matters into his own hands. He enlists the help of reporter Diane Talbott and his wolf-dog, Gray, who’s in training to become a working dog for the USFW. Gray’s nose leads the investigation in unexpected directions. The more rocks Sam turns over, the more motives for murdering McGregor seem to slither out.

With no help or support from local law enforcement, Sam and his team are all that stand between justice and those who might otherwise get away with murder. Sam’s knowledge of backcountry, cougars, and the criminal mind will be put to the test, as he tries to solve the case—and stay alive.

In Cougar Claw, natural history writer Cary J. Griffith brings back Sam Rivers, the predator’s predator, and pens a puzzling mystery filled with suspense and intrigue.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Award-winning author Cary J. Griffith grew up among the woods, fields, and emerald waters of eastern Iowa. His childhood fostered a lifelong love of wild places. He earned a B.A. in English from the University of Iowa and an M.A. in library science from the University of Minnesota.

Griffith’s books explore the natural world. In nonfiction, he covers the borderlands between civilization and wild places. In fiction, he focuses on the ways some people use flora and fauna to commit crimes, while others with more reverence and understanding of the natural world leverage their knowledge to bring criminals to justice. In both genres, readers are likely to learn something about our relationship to the natural world and the creatures who inhabit it.

“I was 14 the first time I visited the lakes and boreal forests of northeastern Minnesota,” says Griffith, “and its beauty struck me.”

Griffith is also the author of Wolf Kill, Gunflint Burning, Lost in the Wild, and Opening Goliath. He lives with his family in a suburb of Minnesota’s Twin Cities.

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Much of what Sam had found at the kill site was troubling. But as Sam considered the possibilities, was it realistic to think someone had somehow used a cougar to have Jack killed? In The Hound of the Baskervilles, a fierce dog was kept in a cage and trained to kill. But this wasn’t Sherlock Holmes, and it wasn’t Baskerville Manor. The idea that someone had trained a mountain lion to chase and kill was ludicrous. Sam Rivers was in Savage, Minnesota, and there were no curses or legends here. There was a prominent citizen who had been viciously killed in a frightening and bizarre manner. And there was plenty about it that didn’t make sense.

Then there was the sheriff’s office and the BCA. The sheriff was just waiting for the lion’s corpse to close the case. And the BCA had the final proof everyone needed, DNA analysis of the fur.

A more sensible investigator, Sam reasoned, would stop fighting city hall and accept the evidence, even though there were still lots of questions. Sam’s anomalies might be unanswered, but they led to nowhere, and nowhere was a lonely place.

Sam had done plenty of work with Tracy McDonald, head of USFW Forensics in Oregon. Tracy not only did forensic work for the service, but he also cataloged DNA samples of several North American species, one of them cougar. Last year, Sam had provided his office with a sample from the cougar they’d killed out at Swenson’s place. Tracy wanted every sample they could get, preferably from different parts of the country, so they could build out a complete DNA picture of mountain lions.

Now Tracy McDonald owed him a favor.

The forensics lab was on speed dial, and it only took a few minutes to connect with Tracy. When Sam explained what happened and what they’d done, Tracy said, “Get me a copy of that DNA sample, would ya? We need as many as we can get. Right now, our database has less than a hundred samples.”

Sam told him he’d see what he could do. “But tell me something, is it pretty definitive? I mean, could mountain lion DNA be confused with anything else?”

“Like what?”

“I have no idea.”

There was a long pause. “If they came up with mountain lion DNA, they probably got it from one of the university labs. And they’re all pretty good. If they say it’s lion, it’s gotta be lion.”

“Not a housecat or something?”

Tracy laughed. “The cats are all pretty distinct. It would be next to impossible to make an incorrect classification. Even from a housecat.”

“Okay, thanks,” Sam said, and he hung up.

Why couldn’t he just let it go.

It didn’t sound like he was going to hear from Susan Connelly and Angie Sweet anytime soon, but he wasn’t sure he needed to. Marlin had photos of one of the women being accosted by Jack McGregor. And Emma Winetraub had seen another driven by Jack McGregor into his garage. Sam wasn’t sure what he might find out, but if he discovered one of them was having an affair with Jack McGregor, it would only reinforce what he already knew. Jack was a player.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Adventure Publications
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2022
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1647550815
• ISBN 13: 9781647550813
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 424
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: ankabu; service@ankabu.de; ; Erdweg 17; Pöttmes; Bayern; Deutschland