Blue Wolf

Publishers Weekly

A muddled plot and a whiny heroine make for middling entertainment in McLendon's latest mystery featuring art dealer Alix Thorssen (last seen in 1999's Nordic Nights). Alix, who owns a gallery in Jackson Hole, Wyo., agrees to help stage an art auction to benefit wildlife conservation in the Yellowstone-Grand Teton ecosystem. Planning the auction raises longstanding, simmering conflicts between ranchers and environmentalists to a fast boil. Two events involving a wolf bring the environmental fight to a head: a local ranchhand who shoots a wolf faces prosecution under the Endangered Species laws, while a reclusive artist whom Alix represents has contributed to the auction a haunting portrait of a wolf, a painting that the committee chair refuses to allow in. (The sad-looking wolf on this book's dust jacket lacks the ferociousness of the wolf portrait.) The strong feelings that the wolf engenders are backdrop for the actual mystery: the painter, concerned about a possible cover-up, asks Alix to look into the death of a teenage boy in a hunting accident 25 years ago. It's a familiar pattern a long-ago mystery resurfacing to become entangled with present conflicts and, because of that familiarity, requires a particularly deft hand. Unfortunately, the uneven plot lurches forward in fits and starts like a car engine badly in need of a tune-up. The primary mystery is resolved offstage, and never fully explained. A small backstory involving Alix as a child goes nowhere. All this transpires in one of the most beautiful spots on earth, but the landscape, sadly, is all but invisible. Agent, Curtis Brown. (Aug. 27) FYI: McClendon is also the author of One O'clock Jump (Forecasts, Feb. 12). Copyright2001 Cahners Business Information.

VOYA

Art gallery owner Alix Thorssen discovers that an old crime has strong ties to the present day when eccentric artist Queen Johns hires her to look into the accidental shooting death of a teenager twenty-five years earlier. As the other residents of Jackson Hole find themselves divided into two camps over the shooting of a wolf near Yellowstone National Park, Alix searches for the reason why the death was covered up so closely by many in the town. Although there are references to the previous three books in this series, Blue Wolf can be read and enjoyed by those unfamiliar with Alix's previous brushes with murder. The strange accidental death of a teenager, the wild beauty of the book's setting, and the exploration of animal rights and the reintroduction of wolves into natural parks as one of the story's plots will engage teens. Graphic language, although used sparingly, and Alix's continued efforts to maintain a romantic relationship with helicopter pilot Carl Mendez give the book an adult edge. Suggest this one to teens who are fans of Nevada Barr's mysteries. VOYA CODES: 3Q 3P S A/YA (Readable without serious defects; Will appeal with pushing; Senior High, defined as grades 10 to 12; Adult and Young Adult). 2001, Walker, 220p, $23.95. Ages 15 to Adult. Reviewer: John Charles

School Library Journal

Adult/High School-Alix Thorssen is a feisty young art gallery owner and part-time artist in Jackson Hole, WY. As her fourth mystery begins, one of her friends, a reclusive artist with a genius for painting wolves, asks her to investigate a hunting accident in which a teenage boy died 25 years ago. Another friend, a local cowboy, has just admitted to having killed a wolf, and the case is generating a bitter local controversy over the reintroduction of the species into the local environment. The community's ranchers, environmentalists, artists, wealthy businesspeople, and park authorities are very much at odds on the subject of the animals, and they all seem to be involved in the charity art auction Alix happens to be putting together. She gets along well with most of them and, though she is not lacking in opinions of her own, she can see their opposing views with clarity and a degree of empathy. As the threads of a rather complicated story come together, memories from Alix's own past emerge and she is forced to confront another, more personal dimension of the controversy. There are many characters here and though they are bold in outline, they are not very fully developed. Similarly, though Jackson Hole is a dramatic setting, the sense of place seems sketchy as well. This would not be the best volume for readers new to Alix and her hometown, but for those already familiar with her milieu, it should be a satisfyingly complex outing.-Christine C. Menefee, Fairfax County Public Library, VA Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Jackson Hole, Wyoming, art gallery owner Alix Thorssen (Nordic Nights, 1999, etc.) has a few problems on her hands. It's off-season and sales are slow; her boyfriend, a Wildlife Service chopper pilot named Carl, has become too demanding; and mercurial Terry Vargas, co-chair of the art auction to benefit the Teton Land Trust, has decided not to include two paintings by Queen Johns, mainly because the two have taken opposing sides on releasing wolves into the wilds, and she's threatened him with a rifle for setting out wolf traps. Then there's Queen's promise of two free paintings if Alix will look into the death of young Derek Wylie in a hunting accident 25 years ago. Meanwhile, Marc Fontaine, an employee of the Bar-T-Bar ranch, has been arrested for shooting a wolf; nice auction co-chair Morris Kale accidentally shoots his wife-or was it no "accident"?-and unraveling the cover-up cloaking Derek's death leads Alix to question who his two companions were that day, and how a blue wolf came to be slaughtered just before. There'll be a suicide, several cantankerous confrontations with Vargas, and innumerable wolf sightings before the bully who browbeat others into killing both animals and people is brought to justice, and Queen and the blue wolf can head for a restorative spell alone in the Wyoming hills. Clunky dialogue, contrived plotting, and a heroine as warm as a Wyoming snowbank in February. But the wolf tracking, reentry program, and nightly howl sessions are worth the slog.