This was the winner of my contest, and it just arrived today. I shall start reading it ASAP!

Registered in Springfield, Virginia, USA.

I'm only about halfway through, but I went browsing this afternoon for other BC reviews of this book and found a particularly memorable one:

"I really wanted to read this book after the great disappointment of his later book Wild Animus under the different name of Rich Shapero ... and I am really pleased to say I actually quite enjoyed this book and the author must have just been having an off novel with Wild Animus!"

I have absolutely no idea where this person got the idea that Rick Buda and Rich Shapero were the same person (they're not - at least, I'm pretty sure they're not), but it amused me so much I just had to reprint it here.

A man is found dead from a propane fire at a construction site. Though it is officially declared an accident, rookie cop Mac MacKurghdy smells a rat. His suspicions lead him through a tangled web of lies and corruption as he tries to get to the bottom of a major environmental threat lurking in the swamps. For a little spice, a supernatural killer also stalks the area. Its relation to the main story is tenous at best, but it makes for a nice bit of drama at the very end.

Despite the otherwise interesting premise, I had a lot of trouble getting through this book. To say it was poorly edited is an understatement. The grammar is awkward and often incorrect, as in this sentence from the very first paragraph: "He'd dreamed of; of it, again." Though Buda is far from the first author I've wanted to pelt with copies of Strunk & White, I found myself stopping too often to decipher sentences, disrupting the flow of my reading and distracting me from the story. However, the punctuation flaws and numerous typos are easily fixable, as are the more general writing errors (e.g., needlessly repeated details). Buda shows real promise as a storyteller; I can only hope his next book is more technically sound.

I'm taking this to tonight's mini-meetup at Cosi in Reston, VA.

I apologize in advance. I suck. I didn't journal the second I got this at the meetup in Washington DC in July, where I met the very lovely BCers from the area. I spent a whirlwind 2 weeks back east, and when I got home, my husband was so excited to have me home, he unpacked my suitcase for me. The book did not get lost in the Ether. Just in my bedroom.

I found the book this morning and since my lovely husband is away on buisness, I'll probably read this tonight. :D