Carnosaur Crimes

When paleoartist Ansel Phoenix finds a burnt body hanging from the mouth of her life-sized Allosaurus replica outside the Big Toe Natural History Museum, she starts digging. An Indian poacher has been cutting out fossil carnosaur tracks along the Redwater River, and the Bureau of Land Management is threatening to close the museum and move the tracks to an educational institution. And the FBI is freezing out the local cops.

Using her half-Blackfoot heritage as leverage, Ansel devises a dangerous scheme to help the FBI expose a statewide fossil-poaching ring. But she didn't count on starting a new romance, stumbling over a heinous BLM land-grabbing plot, or being stalked by a deadly nemesis from her childhood.

When paleoartist Ansel Phoenix finds a burnt body hanging from the mouth of her life-sized Allosaurus replica outside the Big Toe Natural History Museum, she starts digging. But she doesn't count on starting a new romance, stumbling over a heinous land-grabbing plot, or being stalked by a deadly nemesis from her childhood.

Kirkus Reviews

Unrewarding fossil poaching in Montana and Utah. Montana's Big Toe Natural History Museum is in big trouble. Someone has tried to make off with its prize possession, the Allosaurus tracks in its backyard, and died when his equipment blew up. Special Agent Broderick, working with the Bureau of Land Management, wants to invalidate the museum's lease and ship the tracks to Utah. But, first, Chief Flynn and Detective Reid Dorbandt of the sheriff's office step in to deal with the crime. Then along come FBI agents and consultants Overbridge, Standback and LaPierre, who insist they have jurisdiction because the crime resembles two other fossil poachings involving transportation across state lines. Amerind paleoartist Ansel Phoenix, anxious to keep the Big Toe Museum open and its specimens intact, agrees to help the FBI mount a sting operation that thrusts her into the path of a crooked antiquities dealer, drug suppliers and couriers, an old nemesis, Rusty Flynn, who tried to drown her when she was five, and assorted tricksters with shady motives and bureaucratic allegiances. Torn between love for Dorbandt and lust for Standback, Ansel must weather a helicopter crash, a dust storm, radium emissions and the near-death of her father before all quiets down in Big Toe. An overloaded plot, prose as desiccated as those dinosaur bones, and a heroine (Mesozoic Murder, 2003) more imperiled than Pauline.

Christine Gentry grew up in Maryland with her fraternal twin sister where she spent summers fishing and crabbing along the shores of the Chesapeake Bay. She has a Psychology degree and worked for Waldenbooks for twenty years. Christine's publications include magazine articles and other works of fiction and nonfiction. She has also taught courses in freelance writing and police report writing to law enforcement officals.