Shikar - Hardcover

Warner, Jack

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0765303434 ISBN 13: 9780765303431

Publisher: Forge Books, 2003

Synopsis

Shikar marks the spectacular debut of Jack Warner. Totally absorbing, it is a thriller of verve, accomplishment, tension, and imaginative power. This is the kind of story that keeps us awake and reading into the early morning hours, makes us miss our stop, forces us to be late for appointments.

Shikar pits Grady Brickhouse, sheriff of Harte County, Georgia, against an unlikely but fearsome opponent-a full-grown Bengal tiger that has somehow found its way into his jurisdiction. Brickhouse happens to be very good at his job: keeping the peace in his sleepy corner of the huge forested wilderness at the southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail. A former high-school principal, Brickhouse is known as a gentle and fair man, people like him. But he's no match for the tiger, one of the most powerful and cunning predators on the planet-few humans are, and every hunter who goes into the woods after the beast is taken out in pieces. Grady is going to have to find someone or something that can do something damn quick-the death toll mounts every day, the media and the politicians are clamoring for something to be done . . . and something strange is going on that Grady just can't put his finger on, something that doesn't add up. . . .

Shikar is fresh and inventive. Jack Warner performs storytelling magic in the clear, resonant style of the classic adventures of Jack London, Rudyard Kipling, and Michael Crichton.

It is a novel you will never forget.

About this title

About the Author

Jack Warner spent thirty years with United Press International in Dallas, New Orleans, Washington, and Atlanta, followed by thirteen years with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He now lives with his wife of forty-five years on a small ranch near Silver City, New Mexico. He is at work on his second novel.

From Publishers Weekly

With blurbs from Janet Dailey, David Morrell, Dan Simmons and Stephen Coonts, among others, this sharp action thriller from a retired journalist looks to get some well-deserved media attention. Readers shouldn't be dismayed by the opening chapters, which follow classic monster-movie template as a huge Bengal tiger escapes an itinerant zoo in rural Georgia. It then proceeds to eat a few inhabitants, to the consternation of many including local sheriff Grady Brickhouse, the novel's protagonist, but not its most interesting character. That distinction belongs to Col. Jim Graham, a legendary hunter of man-eating tigers who leaves retirement in England to slay the Bengal beast even as a media frenzy develops over the story. Based-according to the author-on the equally legendary but entirely real tiger hunter Col. Jim Corbett, Graham dominates every page he's on with his quiet, cool yet compassionate demeanor, his superb hunting skills and his deep respect for nature and animals-the latter theme pushed by Warner throughout. The novel takes off when Graham arrives, and gains emotional and even spiritual resonance as Warner develops a curious subplot about a young mountain boy, nearly feral, who forges a bond with the tiger but joins forces with Graham in the novel's very exciting climax to confront the man-eater head-on. With lots of fascinating tiger lore, some terrific stalk-and-slash sequences and the charismatic Graham at its center, this novel will please all who enjoy swift tales of courage and derring-do.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Forge Books
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0765303434
• ISBN 13: 9780765303431
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368