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ENDANGERED
by Ann Littlewood
Poisoned Pen Press, July 2012
268 pages
$24.95
ISBN: 1590586212


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Drawing on her years of experience as a zookeeper, Ann Littlewood writes the Iris Oakley series, set in Finley Memorial Zoo in Vancouver, Washington. It's difficult for authors with amateur sleuths to continue to find plausible ways for the character to become involved in murder investigations. Littlewood finds a way around that problem in ENDANGERED, the third book in the series, by taking Iris outside the zoo and into the dark world of the exotic animal trade.

When the police make a drug bust on the Tipton farm they find more than the expected marijuana garden and meth lab. In addition, there are several dogs roaming the farm and a large number of exotic parrots and rare tortoises. Unprepared to deal with the animals, the Finley Zoo is called in to retrieve the parrots and tortoises, and Animal Control is asked to capture the assorted dogs on the premises. But as is often the case when animals are involved, no part of the rescue process goes as planned. Iris and her coworker Denny arrive on the scene only to realize they do not have enough room in their zoo van or enough travel crates to transport all of the animals at once, which means that they will have to make two extra trips to the farm. Then there are contamination issues, unexpected animals, and three angry and dangerous meth cookers still at large, not to speak of the body of the missing daughter that Iris finds while helping the animal control officer catch one of the dogs. To complicate Iris's life even more, because the zoo's quarantine areas are full of the earlier rescues, a pair of Macaws end up Iris's basement.

While Iris is perfectly happy to leave the murder investigation of the Tipton daughter and the drug case to the authorities, she discovers that they are not at all interested in working on tracking the illegal sales of the confiscated animals. She sets out to find where the animals came from and who the Tiptons contact for selling them. While pushing the director of the zoo to find sanctuary homes for the birds and tortoises, she works her way through the animal trafficking underworld putting not only herself but her young son in danger.

Littlewood has made Iris a very believable if a bit reckless a character. As a zookeeper, Iris would naturally push to find out the source for all these endangered animals and be intent on seeing the case through until the animals are all placed and the trafficking ring broken up. I like Iris the zookeeper quite a lot.

Littlewood includes an Afterword with information on the exotic pet trade in the United States and lists books for further reading on the subject.

§Caryn St.Clair resides in University City, Mo and is a former elementary school media specialist, President of the Parks Commission and a docent at the St. Louis Zoo.

Reviewed by Caryn St Clair, May 2012

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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