Rick Chesler

New Mexico. Fourth of July. Special Deputy Jessie Torres, her grandmother who is a Apache curandera. An infusion of odd-acting wolves. All of these combine to make Dark Green a well written and attention grabbing novel.

Jessie was hired to investigate any interaction between wolf packs, wolves and humans. She is noticing activity in the wolves that isn’t right and sets out to figure it out. Add to this mix is the arrival of the Rainbow Family; a group of hippies who take a different National Forest every year to congregate, get high and hang out. Are they in the middle of all this?

Jessie’s sister may have killed her wayward husband. She had good reasons.

This book does a great job of describing New Mexico and the politics that threaten every state in the Union. Protect the wolves? Put them down? A tangled mess that doesn’t apply to them, of course but to all of us.

A great book on cultures and single beliefs.… (altro)

My original Sawfish audiobook review and many others can be found at Audiobook Reviewer.

I was already biased to like this story as such stellar titles as 'Sharktopus' and 'Frankenfish' top the list of my favourite ever films. I don't know what it is about pseudo-science giant animal monster flicks, but I freaking love them.

This book didn't disappoint, it begins with a mean and nasty scientist having the funding cut on his make-giant-sea-creatures project and finding himself out of a job. What the funding body doesn't know is that he's just discovered away to cause gigantism in sawfish, and cos he's mean an' all - he dumps them in the public waterway.

The beasties grow exponentially and become uncharacteristically aggressive because.... science. I have an undergrad degree in Zoology, so I really enjoyed the fact that the author had put some real science in among the fantastic and the fun.

Rayman (pun intended? The fact that sawfish are closely related to ray is a fact which is repeated a few times in the course of the book), the mad scientist, isn't the most developed of characters but that isn't what this story is about. He's deliciously hateful, pompous and amoral. He's careful to pose himself as the hero in this situation, with absolutely no consideration for the fatalities he's ultimately responsible for.

The course of the story follows the sawfish and the havoc they cause, hacking and slashing as a giant sawfish will. Ending in a great hint that there may be more books where this one came from!

Jeffrey S. Fellin is a great narrator and well suited to this book, I'm not sure this book would have brought me quite so much joy in print form. The audio quality was flawless, as well as Fellin's execution of character voices and accents.

If you're a fan of creature features and fun gore, I would absolutely recommend this book for you. It kept me entertained right to the very end!

Audiobook was provided for review by the author.… (altro)