Blue Wolf: An Alix Thorssen Mystery (Alix Thorssen Mysteries)

Rating:
Summary: Excellent tension in this complex story
Review: Alix Thorssen views the wolf as a beautiful creature, but her rancher neighbors disagree. A dead wolf divides the community and art gallery owner Alix finds her sleuthing skills at maximum strength when one of her best clients requests her help in researching an old death. Excellent tension in this complex story of environmentalism and murder.

Rating:
Summary: Powerful, moving, compelling novel
Review: This is just an exquisite novel, the best McClendon has produced to date. We're back
with Alix Thorssen, artist and gallery owner in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, which lies in the
shadow of the Teton Mountains, not far from Yellowstone National Park. It's a place
where not long ago, and over the angry protests of ranchers, and hunters, the gray wolf
was re-introduced, using Canadian imports.
One older alpha male was nicknamed Old Blue. He survived two years and had a
profound effect on the park rangers and ecologists who favored reentry of the wolf into
the ecological mix of the Yellowstone-Teton ranges of the Rocky Mountains. Most
people, encountering a wolf in the wild, are profoundly affected. McClendon has taken
the spare facts and interwoven complexities of human existence in and around Jackson
Hole, with the powerful presence of the Blue Wolf. As the characters in this novel rub up
against Thorssen, Queen, the reclusive painter, Derek, the dead boy, Terry and Percy
Vargas, ranchers and important personages in the area, and Sonny Garrett, attorney,
mover and shaker, their lives are significantly changed by the Blue Wolf.
Queen wants Alix, who's having personal relationship problems at the moment, to try to
find out what really happened when Derek Wylie was killed. The problem is that Derek's
death occurred over twenty years ago. The more a reluctant Alix probes, the more she
comes to realize that there is more to the tragedy than first supposed. Her persistence
pays off in startling and dangerous ways as she discovers that several people in town have
vital information and there appears to be an informal agreement to keep that information
secret. Moreover, important people want the entire episode erased from the public
consciousness.
And there is a dead wolf. Somebody shot a killed a young female wolf which may from
be one of the Yellowstone packs. As tempers get out of control Alix sees prejudicial
action taken against herself and against Queen. This is a tension-filled novel which
shows McClendon's keen sense of people and their emotions and their conflicts. And
always, watching from the mountains, as Alix and the others caught up in this surprising
and twisting tale, is the avatar and the catalyst, the blue wolf. This is a powerful, moving
novel.

Rating:
Summary: GREAT!
Review: This is the best Aliz Thorssen book yet. I loved it so much I bought it for my father and my brother. McClendon really captures the heart of her characters, and I cannot wait for the next one. Please write more!!!