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Grady Service is at it again, in Joseph Heywood’s second installment in the Woods Cop series revolving around Service, a conservation officer recently promoted to detective. I am generally not a fan of mysteries with the all too predictable endings and regurgitated villains, but Heywood exits from the standard serial killer plots to the work of Grady Service protecting Michigan’s wilderness and wildlife from poachers and the like.
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Though Blue Wolf is part of the Woods Cop series, having not read any of the others, I found Blue Wolf to be an exciting stand-alone mystery with twisting interwoven plots and intriguing characters that come off the page. Blue Wolf centers on a mysterious explosion at a Federal Lab that was experimenting with wolves. The green fire leaves two lab workers dead and a number of wolves set free into the wild, including a rare blue wolf that becomes the target of tactical poachers.
Grady must navigate between the Federal red-tape, a possible conspiracy, the Native Americans who fear if the blue wolf is caught or killed will signal Armageddon, and the orange bibbed yahoos out for the hunting season, to find the culprit and save the blue wolf.
In a work of fiction, there is a fine-line to including real-life events. Early in Blue Wolf being swept into the story, I had to put it down when the characters experience September Eleventh. It suddenly threw me out of the story, and left me with a hollow feeling. Heywood does a decent job of exploring the reactions to the national tragedy, and it does tie in a bit with the story, but in a whole the inclusion leaves a shallow stain on what is mostly a great book.
The mystery flows well, as we meet the different characters, and begin to question the schemes and designs of those involved: Undercover agents, Feds, Activists, Gun nuts, Lawyers, Politicians, Law-abiders, Law-breakers, and fellow Woods Cops. Heywood has a good understanding in the development of his plot and characters. The characters all have depth and lives outside the story, and you feel you know them by the end of the book.
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From his writing, you can tell Heywood has a great love for Michigan and the wilderness. The book is well researched, thoughtful, and provoking. Grady runs into an awful lot of trouble doing his job, and an excursion with some Amish hunters is quite hilarious. A couple events fall off the map. One in particular about an old pilot seems forced, but all in all, I found Blue Wolf in Green Fire to be an exciting page-turner, and I suggest any mystery fan to pick it up.
Four fingers and an opposable thumb up for a high-five, this book is a Good Time.
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Written by sixjam - Visit Website
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