Review by Booklist Review
Michigan's Upper Peninsula (UP) is one of the more remote wilderness areas in the U.S. In the mid-1970s, as environmental concerns grew, and fish and game harvests were more regulated than ever before, some of the UP's permanent residents (known as Yoopers ) chafed. Those in the Garden Peninsula, a particularly isolated region of the UP, actually fought back. This fictionalized account dramatizes the events of the Garden Revolt, in which defiant residents rebelled against the outmanned conservation officers of the Department of Natural Resources. Grady Service, a rookie on the conservation force, is chosen to go undercover and work with a resident informant who is frustrated by the Garden's lawless culture. Heywood sticks close to fact--shots were fired, but no one was killed in the revolt--but adds a strong human element by emphasizing the interpersonal relations of Garden residents, both for and against the rebels. This fourth entry in the Woods Cop series is suspenseful, atmospheric, and populated by a genuinely believable cast, particularly the thoroughly ingratiating Service. --Wes Lukowsky Copyright 2005 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
For a change of pace, Heywood sets his fourth Woods Cop mystery (after 2003's Chasing a Blond Moon) in the mid '70s, to show the formative early experiences of his series hero, dedicated conservation officer Grady Service. Recently returned from fighting an unwinnable war against insurgents in Southeast Asia, Service finds himself in a depressingly similar situation stateside. The portion of Michigan's Upper Peninsula known as the Garden is the setting for another type of guerrilla war-one that sets Service and his comrades against lawless, violent natives who flaunt fish and game regulations that seek to balance the needs of those who make their living from the abundant wildlife with the needs of the environment. To break the impasse, Service participates in a clandestine counterinsurgency campaign (its particulars are kept a closely guarded secret because of a suspected mole), which supplants the mystery solving for long stretches. As a result, the eventual identification of the assailant who stabbed a simpleminded local comes as an anticlimax. Outdoors types will especially appreciate the involved battles over commercial fishing limits and poaching. Agent, Betsy Nolan. (June 1) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
The year 1974 marks an increasingly bitter war in the Michigan backwoods that the bad guys keep winning. Poachers are the bad guys who exploit the streams, the fish and the law-abiding. Battling them are good guys like Grady Service, the outnumbered, underfunded Conservation Officers of the Department of Natural Resources. This prequel to Blue Wolf in Green Fires (2002) finds Grady recently returned from Vietnam, a younger, more impetuous version of the first-rate cop he'll become. He's been patrolling the Upper Peninsula's vast and wild Mosquito Tract, but now he's asked to go undercover in the inaptly named Garden, an area 21 miles long crammed with contention. His mission: conduct a one-man recon operation, Vietnam style, to find out how the poachers are organized and by whom. Accepting the assignment with an understandable lack of enthusiasm, he parachutes in the dead of a brutally cold night into enemy territory. His contact is the formidable Cecelia Lasurm, a Garden resident fed up with internecine warfare and willing to risk her neck for peace. Admirably courageous, she is also endlessly enigmatic. An odd couple to begin with, Grady and Cecelia learn to their mutual surprise that they make an effective team. "We're a lot alike," she tells him finally. "We both understand pain and decision." Engrossing stuff. Lots of well-plotted action and an offbeat, affecting love story. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
