Border Prey (Rachel Porter Mysteries)

Rating:
Summary: Border Prey
Review: Border Prey combines all the best of reading. You are well entertained with the characters (Rachel is wisecracking and fun, yet human and interesting) while a great mystery unfolds, keeping you reading, to the end;and yet underlying is a message of truth we all should be aware of. Jessica Speart has it all as she takes you step by step, through the mystery and life of her character Rachel Porter, rogue Fish and Wildlife Agent. Dangers, clues and surprises, on every page, you cant anticipate the next move and yet its fun and very entertaining and in the end when you think about you have learned something very real. A great read and a great book, I look forward to the next, I am hooked.

Rating:
Summary: Border Prey
Review: Border Prey is a book that really reads like an action- adventure thriller movie:- full to bursting with sensory imagery and personal asides from the hard-edged but soft-hearted fish and wildlife agent, Rachel Porter, who recounts the story in ultra-first-person narrative. The action is super-charged with suspense, danger, and genuine outrage at the environmental atrocities that we all know go on, but don't really stop to think about until we read a book like this. I found it near impossible to put it down once I got into the thick of it.

It's always hard to put yourself in someone else's skin, and Rachel's can be a little abrasive at first. She has clearly been jaded by more than a few confrontations with the slimy underbelly of human nature (see books 1, 2, and 3 of the series)and her outlook has become a little, shall we say, prickly....until you get to know her better. Then, when you least expect it, Porter shows her vulnerability; lapsing into musings of lost love and self doubt while breathlessly watching the death-defying aerial mating of bald eagles, or stifling child-like exuberance while watching a coyote being released from a trap, or waxing maternal gazing the eyes of a trained chimp.And then of course, she's so damned true to her cause, and so in love with nature and animals you can't help but soften to her, then sweat bullets with her, even choke up with tears along with her, and, of course, root for her and her cause. It's really fun!

I do hope, (and I'm sure that Speart intends us to)we see through the broad, often comical strokes that the colorful characters are drawn with, and become aware that many of these scenarios are frighteningly for real.

Rating:
Summary: Border Prey
Review: In BORDER PREY, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Special Agent Rachel Porter has been booted from her post in Miami to the ever scenic El Paso/New Mexico border with Mexico. Here in the desert Southwest, she takes on the illegal monkey trade, lecherous ranchers, mad scientists, and vultures. Dealing with smuggling and the misuse of monkeys is bad enough, but the stakes are raised when her only informant is murdered. However, Rachel is no shrinking violet; she and her in-your-face attitude will get the job done, one way or another.

Like Speart's previous novels (GATOR AIDE, TORTOISE SOUP, and BIRD BRAINED), one of the book's biggest strengths is its original, colorful characters! Rachel herself is smart and determined, in addition to possessing a wonderfully dry wit. The supporting characters, from Rachel's tracking mentor Sonny Harris to the lecherous rancher Frederick Ulysses Krabbs (a.k.a. F.U. Krabbs) to the mysterious Dan Kitrell along with numerous other characters, add regional flavor and a richness to the book. And, Rachel is not immune to romance, but Jake Santou hasn't come back into her life just yet.

Perhaps the book's biggest strength is its humor, not unlike that of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series. The humor comes from both Rachel's dry wit and the Lucy/Desi type physical comedy situations that she gets herself into. This colorful, zany, mystery is about serious topics (murder, animal smuggling, and research), but will make most readers chuckle if not laugh-out-loud. This is a very entertaining read!

Rating:
Summary: A Mystery with "Attitude"
Review: The desert southwest is the setting for this novel about wild animals and how they are exploited by various groups. Rachel Porter is the book's main character, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife agent who stumbles onto a plot to smuggle primates into the U.S. from Mexico as part of an elaborate scheme related to biological warfare. The book is sprinkled with other off-beat characters used by the author in an attempt to lighten up the story line, but which, in this reader's opinion, seemed silly and unrealistic.

The author's knowledge of animals of the southwest and their use in bio-medical research is evident and enlightening throughout. Unfortunately her main character is written as a wisecracking, pushy personality who is quite annoying at times and takes some getting used to. It is easy to understand why Ms. Porter has been canned from previous assignments with the Fish and Wildlife Service.

The climax of the plot involves a confrontation with Rachel, her friend who is in love with a chimpanzee (I told you some of these characters were silly), and the bad guy in a secret underground bio-chemical laboratory under the desert (how did he build that?).

If you like Animal Planet or that guy on the Today show with his portable petting zoo you will probably like this book.

Rating:
Summary: Border Prey
Review: This is the 4th installment in the Rachel Porter Series and it's not a disappointment. After the first few pages of the first book, Gator Aide, it's evident that Rachel Porter is not one to mess with. She is a great sleuth and truly has a heart...don't mess with her animals or her friends! In Porder Prey, Jessica Speart clues the reader in on the underworld of primate smuggling and manages to throw in real facts and information without sounding like a Biology 101 lecture. You can be confident you are really learning something and know that Speart is not just making things up. Her background as a freelance journalist covering wildlife issues is her badge of credit. Along with mysteries that keep you thinking and guessing, Speart keeps you entertained with extraordinary descriptions of the scenery and the animals. Her writing style is smooth and you can feel the desert heat without even consciously thinking about it. In addition, Speart gives plenty of detail and attention to the cast of characters that surround Rachel Porter. They may not be the people you run into everyday, but they are interesting and you know that they are out there somewhere! All in all, Jessica Speart is an excellent author who has given us a great mystery series with all those added twists and turns that keep you turning the pages. And, Rachel Porter is a US Fish and Wildlife Agent on a mission!

Rating:
Summary: Good characters, extremely unrealistic ending
Review: This is the second Jessica Speart book I've read. Her writing style and characters hold up in both books. I found the story interesting even though the some of the things done to animals made me cringe. The characters were all very likable and entertaining. I would've given the book a much higher rating if it wasn't for the last 25 pages or so. I found the conclusion a bit hard to swallow. I recommend the book but don't expect to believe everything in it.

Rating:
Summary: Good characters, extremely unrealistic ending
Review: This is the second Jessica Speart book I've read. Her writing style and characters hold up in both books. I found the story interesting even though the some of the things done to animals made me cringe. The characters were all very likable and entertaining. I would've given the book a much higher rating if it wasn't for the last 25 pages or so. I found the conclusion a bit hard to swallow. I recommend the book but don't expect to believe everything in it.

Rating:
Summary: Preying on the border
Review: This was an interesting mystery, for two reasons. It does focus on the important problem of primate smuggling, but it was also interesting because the author chose, as a setting for this book, an area which she obviously dislikes very much. Most regional mysteries, such as those of Tony Hillerman, Dana Stabenow, and Nevada Barr, will leave the reader with a greater knowledge and appreciation of the people and the land of a certain region of the world. In this book, however, both the people and the land are hot, cruel, and dirty. Trust me, living along "La Frontera" is really not that bad...

Rating:
Summary: Preying on the border
Review: This was an interesting mystery, for two reasons. It does focus on the important problem of primate smuggling, but it was also interesting because the author chose, as a setting for this book, an area which she obviously dislikes very much. Most regional mysteries, such as those of Tony Hillerman, Dana Stabenow, and Nevada Barr, will leave the reader with a greater knowledge and appreciation of the people and the land of a certain region of the world. In this book, however, both the people and the land are hot, cruel, and dirty. Trust me, living along "La Frontera" is really not that bad...