Publisher's Weekly Review
Gail McCarthy (Roped, etc.), a smart and stubborn veterinarian fast approaching middle age, is looking forward to a trip in California's Sierra Nevada mountains, accompanied only by her two dependable horses and one frisky dog. Crum spins a solidly built story that pits the independent and savvy woman against a heedless natural world and some nasty humans. Gail leaves the pack station after an unsettling incident: she has watched a local die after a self-inflicted gunshot wound and has listened to his last few, cryptic words ("Green fire in their bellies. I couldn't save them. Dying"). Although still uneasy (several intrusive packers are extremely interested in those last words), Gail heads off alone into a territory that is familiar but enchangingÄbrilliant wildflowers, magical, open green meadows, white water. But storms, rock slides and an attack by wasps wear down her and her animals. Worse, she feels she is being stalked, as a felled tree, a snare set for horses and a sabotaged bridge are set in her path. And when she is joined by an enigmatic yet attractive packer she had met earlier, she is deeply ambivalent: Is he a protector or a menace? Some finely drawn portraits, a tight plot that keeps its secrets until the end and a spectacular assist from Mother Nature make for memorable reading. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
When you want to get away from the rigors of a Santa Cruz veterinary practice, there's no place like the Sierra Nevadas, where you can relax and unwind, free from the distractions of the latest colicky horse and your suddenly inattentive boyfriend Lonny Peterson. But the scenery is a little too aptly named for Gail McCarthy, whose trip to Deadman Meadow discloses a man who, if not quite dead, is just far enough along to let Gail in on his dying words. Why was fellow vet Bill Evans determined to die despite Gail's efforts to get him medical help? And what did he mean when he said those horses' deaths were all his fault? Before Gail can puzzle out his meaning (though many readers will have ample time to do so), she's off on the pack trail, exulting in the challenges of the wilderness and wishing her trip weren't so beset by accidents. There are the unwelcome encounters with ranchers and trail hands who knew Bill, the rockslide, her packhorse's thrown shoe, booby-traps, and finally the crack of gunfire. Most troubling of all, Gail can't tell whether Blue Winter, the cowboy who keeps turning up to rescue her, is really the miscreant who's behind all her troubles. The biggest mystery is whether Blue will take Lonny's place in Gail's affections. But the gently mounting tension in Crum's fifth (Cutter, 1998, etc.) is just the thing for readers who like their animals more personable than their people.
Library Journal Review
Despite discovering an apparent suicide victim in the wilderness, Santa Cruz veterinarian Gail McCarthy begins a planned vacation alone in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The much-anticipated isolation never happens, though. Other campers and horse people pop up everywhere, including her boyfriend's resentful ex-wife, the suicide victim's ex-wife's one-time boyfriend, a strange anti-horse and -cattle environmentalist, and a furtive ill wisher. Descriptions of breathtaking natural surroundings abound, as do adept equine and human characterizations. Steadily paced but lively; a good series bet. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
