Night Game (A John Marquez Crime Novel)

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The tough, caring, and distinctive John Marquez is back. Booklist lauded him as "far and away the most inventive new detective hero." The San Francisco Chronicle raved "readers may find themselves wanting to buy this guy Marquez a drink just to keep him talking." And The Chicago Tribune gave high praise to the way author Kirk Russell "makes us quickly believe in Marquez and his cause." In this gripping new crime novel, former federal drug agent Marquez again pushes the boundaries of safety and politics when he takes his team of Fish and Game officers on a dangerous operation in pursuit of bear poachers. Night Game hits hard and moves fast toward a finish that ricochets through wilderness, backwoods towns, and the darker recesses of love and greed. A second novel that delivers — and firmly establishes a great series.

Author Biography: Kirk Russell lives in Berkeley, California.

FROM THE CRITICS

Booklist

A highly original detective . . . . Russell writes of the wilds with deep knowledge, making his story achingly credible.

Library Journal

In his second outing (after Shell Games), California Fish and Game Lt. John Marquez and his Special Operations Unit (SOU) go undercover in the Sierras to find the source of bear parts farming, an illegal business made lucrative by Chinese medicine practitioners needing bear bile. Wary of his informant, Marquez also doubts local warden Bill Petroni's forthrightness since the two of them have a history-and Petroni is dating a member of a known poaching family. Worse still, sheriff's detective Jack Kendal wants to implicate Petroni in an unsolved homicide of a geology graduate student. Things really heat up when Petroni's estranged wife turns up dead, he disappears, and the SOU finds its case deeply entwined with the others. With its complex plotting and tough yet honorable protagonist, this exciting outdoor crime series is just the ticket for fans of C.J. Box's Joe Pickett and Joseph Heywood's Grady Service. For most mystery collections. Russell lives in Berkeley, CA.-Teresa L. Jacobsen, Santa Monica P.L., CA Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Splendid second outing in a procedural series (Shell Games, 2003) about a tough-as-nails California Fish & Game investigator busting a cabal of bear poachers. Lt. John Marquez thinks he's alone in the forest when he hears a twig snap. Kirk milks so much malevolence from that single sound that the disturbingly horrific events that follow-including a murder as ghastly as the infamous flaying deaths in The Silence of the Lambs-invest the scenic northern California mountains with as much brooding danger as any inner city slum. As head of the last remaining state Fish & Game undercover investigation team, Marquez is after a shadowy group of poachers who bait, trap, torture, and kill bears, then sell pieces of them to folk healers. No mere bunch of backwoods bad boys, this group has hacked into the state computers and has the names and addresses of Marquez and his team, and of their family members. Now, Marquez finds himself cast as a go-between a possibly corrupt game warden, Bill Petroni, and a zealous homicide detective, Jack Kendal. Kendall is trying to solve a nearly year-old murder of an idealistic young camper, while Petroni, who once led a similar Fish & Game undercover team, has left his wife to move in with bar maid and local femme fatale Sophie Broussard, whose family and boyfriend have a history of drug manufacturing, bear poaching, and over-the-top violence. Add in a powerful state senator who's about to join a logging industry lobbyist on a bear hunt-without a license. Russell manages expertly in shifting between scenes of shocking brutality and sour cynicism (for conniving bureaucrats and venal lawyers), not to mention in portraying the many levels of affection Marquez feels forhis team, his family, the animals he's sworn to protect, and the magnificent wilderness that surrounds him. Superb suspense, culminating in an exhausting but satisfying series of chases, showdowns, and bitter glimpses of justice denied.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

Kirk Russell writes with the clarity of a mountain stream. He has captured a fascinating subculture and peopled it with characters deep enough to drown in. The story flows through the brain with an exhilarating rush. — Nevada Barr

Night Game is an engaging, harrowing, and at times heart-breaking tale told with crisp but evocative prose. Author Kirk Russell guides us through a world of ruthless bear poachers and organ harvesters, with an unerring eye for how the marginalized mandate of wildlife protectors opens up into a much larger story of who we are and how we live. A bracing, convincing, and heartfelt read. — David Corbett