Theft: A Novel

This is an intense novel about what the past made us, and how we go about making our own futures. It's the story a family--a distant father, an ailing mother, a teenage boy with a dark side, and a young girl trying to keep everything together. We move with them through time and events, and learn that the Colorado setting is as much of a character as any of the human players. A dramatic climax comes to the family, and we jump forward 15 or so years to the brother and sister, grown up and away, making up new lives for themselves. But the past isn't finished with them yet, and one must literally track the other in order to at last put the past to rest. Running along side the first family narrative is another family's drama, one of a father who made some bad mistakes but who now risks his life to correct them, fighting to keep a beautiful and nearly extinct animal, Mexican wolves, alive and in their rightful place on the earth. These two stories weave together into a nuanced cultural drama, written with a western backdrop of howling coyotes, smuggled wolves and silently watching mountain lions, poignant and memorable and the kind of book that,especially toward the end, you slow down reading because every word must be savored. This is a truly remarkable debut novel. ( )