Noir with an Environmental Conscience

Not your typical thriller, The Extinction Club features colorful characters, an environmental consciousness, and an atypical locale. Add to it Jeffrey Moore's strong writing and you have something that goes a step beyond ordinary thriller and crime fiction.

Nile Nightingale is on the lam, sort of, fleeing a vengeful ex-girlfriend by whom he has a young daughter. He made plenty of mistakes, including taking his daughter on an excursion without mentioning it to the girlfriend. That makes him a wanted man, a wanted wealthy man, as well as a man who has had problems with drugs and alcohol, who is prone to hallucinations. From NJ, he heads to Quebec Province, to a small hunting town in the Laurentians. There he finds a surprise in the form of a girl, savagely wounded, left in a sack to bleed to death. Using a fountain of knowledge accumulated in failed career attempts, he mends and nurses her back to life.

Céleste Jonquéres, 14 going on 15, is a self-schooled little genius fraught with issues revolving around her appearance, her interests, and the fact that now, with the death of her grandmother who raised her, finds herself alone in the world. Then there's the fact that a gang of hunters milking bears for their bile, as well as other vile torments, are after her. She despises them, their maltreatment of animals for money, and that they hunt and kill for enjoyment.

At first, she doesn't like or trust Nile. And herein lies the strongest point of the book: the skillful and wonderful manner in which Moore develops the relationship between the two of them. Because of this, in the end, you'll find yourself greatly affected by what transpires.

The other strong point is how Moore calls attention to the plight of wildlife at the hands of people interested only in money. You'll learn some things you never knew, things that will sicken you. The abuse of wildlife goes beyond blasting them into extinction, and these horrors are much worse.

Originally published in Canada in 2010. Nominated for an Arthur Ellis Award for best crime. Recommended if you're looking for something different and more intelligent than the usual fare of thriller and crime fiction. ( )

Noir with an Environmental Conscience

Not your typical thriller, The Extinction Club features colorful characters, an environmental consciousness, and an atypical locale. Add to it Jeffrey Moore's strong writing and you have something that goes a step beyond ordinary thriller and crime fiction.

Nile Nightingale is on the lam, sort of, fleeing a vengeful ex-girlfriend by whom he has a young daughter. He made plenty of mistakes, including taking his daughter on an excursion without mentioning it to the girlfriend. That makes him a wanted man, a wanted wealthy man, as well as a man who has had problems with drugs and alcohol, who is prone to hallucinations. From NJ, he heads to Quebec Province, to a small hunting town in the Laurentians. There he finds a surprise in the form of a girl, savagely wounded, left in a sack to bleed to death. Using a fountain of knowledge accumulated in failed career attempts, he mends and nurses her back to life.

Céleste Jonquéres, 14 going on 15, is a self-schooled little genius fraught with issues revolving around her appearance, her interests, and the fact that now, with the death of her grandmother who raised her, finds herself alone in the world. Then there's the fact that a gang of hunters milking bears for their bile, as well as other vile torments, are after her. She despises them, their maltreatment of animals for money, and that they hunt and kill for enjoyment.

At first, she doesn't like or trust Nile. And herein lies the strongest point of the book: the skillful and wonderful manner in which Moore develops the relationship between the two of them. Because of this, in the end, you'll find yourself greatly affected by what transpires.

The other strong point is how Moore calls attention to the plight of wildlife at the hands of people interested only in money. You'll learn some things you never knew, things that will sicken you. The abuse of wildlife goes beyond blasting them into extinction, and these horrors are much worse.

Originally published in Canada in 2010. Nominated for an Arthur Ellis Award for best crime. Recommended if you're looking for something different and more intelligent than the usual fare of thriller and crime fiction. ( )

It was a bit of a mind-trip to read a novel about illegal wildlife poaching & associated torture while on vacation in one of Canada's biggest & oldest natural parks, but it certainly brought home the novel's themes in a pointed fashion. The characters are well-drawn and the plot starts with a bang and keeps on to the finish. ( )

Despite this book being one of the most disturbing reads I've had in a while, I enjoyed it immensely. I gobbled this book down as fast as my responsibilities would allow. My main problem with this book, however, is the problem I have with most modern (and a lot of Classic Lit as well): the beginning of the book is rather cliche. I don't know if I can properly explain this to other readers, but when a book starts with a character doing something mysterious and you don't learn even their name for 70 pages, or anything about anything, it feels like a really contrived beginning - almost like writing a book solely in the second or third person as a gimmick, which only works well if done exceptionally well. That's the only thing I had against this book, though, and after the first 100 pages, everything caught up with itself and moved at a good pace. If someone had told me what this book was about before I read it, I probably wouldn't have read it. There's a lot of descriptions about animal abuse/torture/hunting and if you're an animal lover (and a wuss), like I am, then I don't think I could recommend this book in good faith. Some of the things described literally made me sick to my stomach and I had to set the book down to recuperate. Overall, though, it wasn't graphic detail or gratuitous violence, just plain descriptions that put my stomach on high alert. ( )

1 of 21 books for $10. 2/10/12 ( )