Title: Alaska Hunt
Author: Shelter Somerset and John Solo (Narrator)
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Release Date Book: July 25, 2015
Release Date Audio: August 15, 2016
Genre: MM Contemporary Romance, Ecological Thriller
Page Count: 270
Audio Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
Reviewed by: LenaRibka
Heat Level: 2 flames out of 5
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Blurb:
For Alaska Wildlife Trooper Zanebono Fusca, it’s just another summer in Anchorage until a slew of inexplicable fatal bear attacks sets the city reeling. As far as Zane is concerned, the timing couldn’t be worse. He’s besieged with his own demons, coping with personal loss and an identity crisis that clutches him worse than a grizzly’s pickaxe-sized fangs. Ten years before, he hoped Alaska would bring him a sense of his manhood. Now the “last frontier” could put him in an early grave.
Zane’s role to protect Alaska’s teeming wildlife gets even more tangled when handsome twenty-five-year-old Joshua Gaffner arrives seeking the details of his uncle’s gruesome death. But Alaskan officials have few answers. Against his better judgment, Zane takes Joshua deep into Anchorage’s far-flung backcountry-populated with eccentric recluses and ego-driven ecologists-in search of the truth. As the bizarre attacks increase, Zane and Josh continue to push for clues to crack the mystery. Finally Zane unravels a shocking discovery that makes the pieces fall into place. The trouble is Josh stands in the perfect position to become the next victim.
Zanebono Fusca moved to Alaska many years ago following his dream to live in a wildness, without modern constraints, restrictions, regulations, with his wife and his son. At thirty-one, 10 years later, divorced and without a family by his side, he wishes his life has turned differently, but he has never regretted his decision to chose Alaska and become a wildlife investigator.
When a grizzly broke into a trapper’s cabin and killed a man, many people believe that it was just a tragic accident, and that the grizzly came to the cabin seeking for food. The sow was found dead some yards from the cabin with several shots and stabs with a knife, it was obvious that the victim did everything to protect himself, but failed.
The case has been closed but it left some unanswered questions and a strange feeling by Zane.
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1) WHY if the bear that was searching for food, didn’t touch the food in the cabin?
2) WHY did the bear show so much rage?
Exactly the same questions torment Joshua, an attractive nephew of the victim, who arrives in Anchorage to take care of his uncle’s legacies, and to find more details about the tragic accident with a fatal outcome. Joshua rejects to accept the version of the bear attack published in a local newspaper. Even if it is against his principles, Zane decides to help Joshua to find more about the attack, at first only because he feels attracted by the young man and wants to spend more time with him.
But then the next bear attack happens…
And then the next one…
Now Zane has no doubts that all these attacks were not just tragic accidents, but a result of carefully organized and well thought out crime.
But who is behind it and why?
Alaska Hunt is a wonderful book. I enjoyed not only the mystery part, that kept me on the edge of my seat, up to the very last page, but also a nice realistic romance between Zane and Joshua. Zane has never had any relationship with a man before, he is insecure, and reserved in his feelings, but he has his reasons. In spite of the romance part plays an important role in the novel, a love story doesn’t belong to the main story-line of the book, but it is indispensable. The main focus is set on Zanebono Fusca, his life and the mystery he tries to solve. He is a great character with his issues and demons, very realistic and authentic, protective, honest and strong.
If you are in the right mood for an ecological wild- life thriller with a realistic romance and a very satisfying ending , set in the rugged raw nature of Alaska, you shouldn’t miss it.
A special thank you to the narrator. I know that audio books could be very tricky, if you don’t enjoy a narrator’s style, it is difficult to like the book, doesn’t matter how good it is. If you hesitate between an eBook and an audio-book here, just get an audio sample and make your own opinion.
John Solo did a great job and I can’t recommend him highly enough.
I’m going to check more audio books he narrated.
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