Having transferred from steamy New Orleans, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Agent Rachel Porter learns her new assignment in the Nevada desert is no picnic, either: three hundred and fifty endangered tortoises have disappeared from a federal hatching site. Rachel finds no shortage of suspects in the tort-napping: a trio of eco-nuts living in an ark, who fear the creatures are about to die off; trigger-happy ranchers who hate the new government restrictions on ther grazng lands; and developers whose greedy land grab has been forced to halt.
When Rachel discovers the decaying skeleton of a reclusive landowner and her home and office are bombed, her instincts tell her that the missing tortoises are at the center of all the mayhem. And as the deception, dirty dealing and fatal secrets escalate, Rachel finds herself deep in desert danger--from critters two-legged and otherwise!

Don't let the picture of the tortoise in a swimming cap fool you into thinking this is a cute little mystery about finding missing tortoises. Some pretty disturbing stuff happens in this story.

If you like this book, it's part of a series. (This is the second of the series.) Enjoy!

RELEASE NOTES:

Released as part of the September "You're Such an Animal" Challenge.

Next to the turtle in the Wild Reef area. Enjoy!

I found this book in the breakroom at work - it was there for quite awhile before I realized it was a Book Crossing book - that was a nice surprise!
This book has some unpleasant moments - an extremely squeamish person might have a few moments of unpleasantness when they're reading it! The book is all right, but the author over-describes things - using far too many metaphors, analogies, and adjectives. It held my attention though. :)

I'll leave this book at my normal bus stop today when I'm going home from work. There seems to be a lot of people frequenting that area. Hopefully someone will find it and do their thing online! :)