Port Book and News

Sims's smart third Rita Farmer mystery (after 2009's The Extra) finds Rita savoring some stability as an L.A. law student and single mom after years of angst with an alcoholic ex. Then the disappearance of her sister, Gina, thrusts the former actress into her most dramatic role to date. When days pass without word from just engaged Gina and her wealthy fiancé, Lance de Sauvenard, who's scouting locations in the storm-lashed Washington State wilderness for his filmmaker brother, Kenner, headstrong Rita resists reaching out to PI George Rowe, her erstwhile beau, and instead enlists her game six-year-old son, Petey, and gay TV actor friend, Daniel, in the hunt. Raging rivers prove to be among the lesser perils these babes in the wood face in a forest primeval harboring scoundrels ready for their Coen brothers closeup--and just maybe a murderer. Sims orchestrates the action--and occasional comic relief--for maximum impact, with characters you hope will survive to enjoy another day.

It's December 1997, and a man-eating tiger is on the prowl outside a remote village in Russia's Far East. The tiger isn't just killing people, it's annihilating them, and a team of men and their dogs must hunt it on foot through the forest in the brutal cold. As the trackers sift through the gruesome remains of the victims, they discover that these attacks aren't random: the tiger is apparently engaged in a vendetta. Injured, starving, and extremely dangerous, the tiger must be found before it strikes again.
As he re-creates these extraordinary events, John Vaillant gives us an unforgettable portrait of this spectacularly beautiful and mysterious region. We meet the native tribes who for centuries have worshipped and lived alongside tigers, even sharing their kills with them. We witness the arrival of Russian settlers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, soldiers and hunters who greatly diminished the tiger populations. And we come to know their descendants, who, crushed by poverty, have turned to poaching and further upset the natural balance of the region.
This ancient, tenuous relationship between man and predator is at the very heart of this remarkable book. Throughout we encounter surprising theories of how humans and tigers may have evolved to coexist, how we may have developed as scavengers rather than hunters, and how early "Homo sapiens" may have fit seamlessly into the tiger's ecosystem. Above all, we come to understand the endangered Siberian tiger, a highly intelligent super-predator that can grow to ten feet long, weigh more than six hundred pounds, and range daily over vast territories of forest and mountain.
Beautifully written and deeply informative, " The Tiger" circles around three main characters: Vladimir Markov, a poacher killed by the tiger; Yuri Trush, the lead tracker; and the tiger himself. It is an absolutely gripping tale of man and nature that leads inexorably to a final showdown in a clearing deep in the taiga.

David Douglas was the premier botanical explorer in the Pacific Northwest and throughout other areas of western North America in the 19th century. Douglas' discoveries include hundreds of western plants, most notably the iconic Douglas Fir. "The Collector" tracks Douglas' fascinating history, from his humble birth in Scotland in 1799 to his botanical training under the famed William Jackson Hooker, and details his adventures in North America discovering "exotic" new plants for the English and European market. In telling Douglas' story, Nisbet evokes a lost world of early exploration, pristine nature, ambition, and cultural and class conflict with surprisingly modern resonances.