Baited

Its 2004, the summer of Glacier Parks grizzly bear DNA study. In the Cut Bank Valley, Clancy Dyer dashes through the aspen to roust her coworker Ezra, but instead she finds his shredded tent and a horrible smell. Ezra has disappeared. Meanwhile, District Ranger Mack Savage speeds toward the valleys car campground in response to his rookie rangers report of unusual bear behavior. Mack has been dating Liz Ralston, the biologist conducting a groundbreaking DNA study. Saboteurs have wrenched her materials and she suspects both park personnel and a local climber. Frustrated with Macks inability to protect her study, Liz has hired a Blackfeet tribal member and local packer who she knows carries a pistol and a grudge. Meanwhile, she may not be above taking her own revenge. Set amidst Glaciers fierce beauty, Baited grapples with grief, multiple suspicious deaths, differing beliefs surrounding the protection of Glaciers grizzly bears, the parks fraught relationship with the adjacent Blackfeet Reservation, and especially how to reconcile ones love and affection for a person who has committed a reprehensible act. Told primarily from Clancy and Macks points of view but with some of the other characters taking center stage as needed, in particular the Native American stories that help shape the novel. The writing abounds with beautifully rendered passages and vivid thumbnail descriptions that make Glacier Parks majestic wilderness a character in itself.