Carnosaur Crimes

March 21, 2005
At the start of Gentry's rambunctious second "dinosaur" mystery (after 2003's Mesozoic Murder
), half-Blackfoot paleo-artist Ansel Phoenix rushes to the scene when the replica of an Allosaurus that she created to guard a natural history museum in Big Toe, Mont., is found with human remains in its massive jaws. Local police, the Bureau of Land Management and the FBI stumble into each other in a counterproductive tug-of-war for jurisdiction in the ensuing investigation. Phoenix gets involved when BLM bureaucrats threaten to use the incident as an excuse to close Big Toe's economically vital museum. Reid Dorbandt, a homicide detective, who happens to have saved Ansel's life in Mesozoic Murder
, demands that she keep him apprised of the sting operation into which she's drafted to root out illegal fossil sales connected with the strange death. The cheekily appealing Ansel must summon extraordinary strength and native wisdom to battle greedy corruption, personal demons and the harsh environment of the badlands. Though several plot-thickening coincidences strain credulity, the snowballing pace will keep the reader turning the pages until the unexpected finish.

March 1, 2005
Montana paleoartist Ansel Phoenix is almost finished with the dinosaur paintings for a new book she is illustrating when the attempted theft of some fossil dinosaur footprints, located outside a local museum, interrupts her work. Fearful the government will remove the footprints to a faraway university for study, thereby taking away the town's chief tourist attraction, and dismayed by the wholesale destruction caused by fossil poachers, Ansel agrees to take part in an FBI investigation to catch the poachers. What was supposed to be an afternoon's work, with little danger involved, blossoms into a deadly chase across the parched, desolate Badlands. Plot twists, fast pacing, and vivid descriptions distinguish this second in the series. Ansel is a complex, likable character with a fascinating profession who blends traditions from both her Caucasian and Native American backgrounds. Readers who enjoy the natural-world backdrop in Nevada Barr's novels will relish the setting here, and those who enjoy the geology plot will appreciate Sarah Andrews' Em Hansen mysteries.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)