Rice Moore, a fugitive with a checkered past, has taken a job as caretaker on a forest preserve deep in Virginia's Appalachian Mountains. For a time he's content in this solitary refuge, cataloging the area wildlife, refurnishing rundown cabins and being rejuvenated by nature. His nearest neighbors in this remote location include a scattering of hardscrabble farmers, suspicious and independent, as well as a drug-running motorcycle gang.

Moore is on the run from a Mexican drug cartel, so he isn't anxious to make his presence known to this wider circle.

Two events prompt Moore to take a more public stance. First he discovers poachers are slaughtering bears to sell their parts -- gall bladders and paws -- for the Asian medical black market. Then he meets and learns biologist Sara Birkeland, who had the refuge job before him, was brutally assaulted and raped, probably by these same poachers.

His efforts to stop the poachers and get revenge for Sara brings on dangerous confrontation with the human predators and the law as well as disclosing his location to the cartel.

Moore must become the hunter to achieve his twin goals of saving the bears and achieving justice for Sara. This isn't your ordinary page-turner thriller. Bearskin advances slowly, tension building like the heat of a sultry summer afternoon, the suspense drawing the reader in until the final bloody showdown with the cartel's sicario.

Along the way, the reader is treated to engaging characters, a gripping plot and evocative descriptions of the wilderness and its creatures.

This is a debut novel and one of my favorite reads of 2020. I can't wait to see what McLaughlin does next.

[ visit James A. McLaughlin online ]