Wild Animals

With the president coming to town to support a local candidate, Rozette, Montana, police detective Ray Bartell is detailed to help the Secret Service keep tabs on the local lunatics, including supposed eco-terrorist and ex-convict Henry Skelton.

Big-time politics brings mayhem to Rozette, Mont., as Reid makes a simplistic point about the evils of civilization and the virtues of wildness. When an ex-president is scheduled to stump locally for Senate candidate Merle Puhl, Detective Ray Bartell thinks being assigned to the Secret Service security detail will be "a lot of fun"-until the campaign takes an intense interest in ex-con Henry Skelton, who may be responsible for the recent bombing of a helicopter. Bartell thinks Skelton just wants to be left alone, an opinion he retains even after his police car explodes following an uneasy chat with Skelton. Associates of the ostrich-ranching Puhl continue to insist, however, that Skelton is a major threat, and the police begin to wonder just whose side Bartell is on. As the tension mounts, it becomes apparent what a bad idea it was to corner Henry Skelton. Reid (The Red Corvette), himself a Montana detective, writes good country-cop talk and draws his characters well-except for the women, who have a hard time understanding all that noble torment beneath the stoic male exterior. The face-off between Bartell and Skelton is gripping, but the government-bashing and romanticizing of wild men is beyond tired.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Ray Bartell is a detective for the Rozette, Montana, police department. Henry Skelton is an ex-con who did hard time for beating a federal agent. Merle Puhl is running for governor of Montana and has convinced the former president of the U.S. to appear on his behalf in Rozette. The ex-prez's advance team wants Bartell to keep an eye on Skelton, whose prison record and crackpot politics make him a likely assassin. Bartell arranges a meet with Skelton, and the pair--flip sides of the same coin--part angrily yet respectfully. Bartell is caught in the middle of his respect for Skelton and his responsibility to protect the local dignitaries. Readers will identify with Bartell's dilemma of having to choose sides, cover his professional butt, and then act, all without knowing the players or their motives. Add two memorable adversaries in Bartell and Skelton for an edge-of-the-seat experience. A powerful, stylishly written suspenser. Wes Lukowsky