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This time, Rachel Porter was not forcibly sent from her previous posting, She requested a transfer from Montana to a new post. She's now in Coastal Georgia, living on Tybee Island, near Savannah with the love of her life, Federal agent Jake Santou, and, as usual, having trouble with authority. The local sheriff, "Quick Draw" Magraw has allowed the shrimp poachers she was tailing to escape. Her informer tells her that someone is using a motor boat to shoot clapper rails, a low flying marsh bird. She tickets the culprit only to find out that he is Clark Williams, ex-secretary of the Interior, a man after George Bush's heart, who thinks that everything was created for his benefit, to use as he sees fit. She doesn't ticket he black man piloting the boat, since, in her estimation, he is not culpable. He works for CRG industries, one of the chemical companies in the area. Jim Lowell, Rachel's boss, informs her that the ticket has been thrown out because Porter had not been authorized to work on Labor Day. However, Gary Fletcher, contaminant specialist in Brunswick calls on Rachel to help him with a problem. It seems someone has opened a park exploiting Manatees, an endangered species. They then go to the grounds of CRG and find pollutants leaching out into the swamp. As is her wont, Porter (and Fletcher) continue to investigate that which their bosses are willing to let slip by. Rachel works for the animals who cannot speak for themselves. She works to prevent any more species from being destroyed by man. Her descriptions of sick manatees is heartbreaking. Speart's normal cast of characters is missing in this, a much darker book than the previous ones in the series. But the new ones include Rachel's 87 year old landlady, Marie, and her boy toy, 71 year old Alfred; Eight-Ball, the boat driver, his cousin Venus, and Reverend Bayliss, more than make up for the missing friends. Although I enjoyed the other books in the series, I was not familiar with the venues. I have spent some time in Savannah, and she gets it right. Beware of Savannah at night. At least one of its squares is haunted. And after the tale of the slave hospital on Tybee Island, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that it also is haunted. It's hard to get it all right. Speart manages to have well rounded primary and secondary characters, great locations, and stories that make one realize that we must try and do better by the environment. This is her most complex and heart-rending tale yet.
Reviewed by Barbara Franchi, January 2003
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