Wolf Kill: A Sam Rivers Mystery

In this outdoors thriller, the investigation of a bizarre wolf attack leads to evidence of murder, conspiracy, and shocking family secrets.

“I loved this novel and recommend it highly. But I suggest you enjoy it under a warm blanket. Honestly, I’ve never read a book that evokes the fierce winter landscape of the North Country better than Wolf Kill.”
—William Kent Krueger, Edgar Award-winning author of This Tender Land

A decades-old promise haunts Sam Rivers, but the wildlife biologist refuses to return home—not with his abusive and estranged father still there. Rivers left the family farm some 20 years ago. He found solace in nature and built a respected career as a special agent for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. His experiences have given him a penchant for understanding predators—a skill he’ll need, now, more than ever.

After his father’s mysterious death, Rivers is lured back to his hometown of Defiance, in northern Minnesota, to fulfill his mother’s dying wish. But all is not as it seems. Rivers breaks into his childhood home during a howling winter storm and discovers something sinister. His suspicions are heightened after a bizarre wolf attack on local livestock. The events lead the special agent to a series of clues that could change everything he knows—or thinks he knows—about the town, his family, and himself.

With the help of alluring reporter Diane Talbott, Rivers must unravel the wolf kill and learn what really happened to his father—a man Rivers has hated for most of his life. It is a case unlike any he’s worked before. His knowledge of frigid winters, wolves, and wilderness will be put to the test, as he tries to solve the case—and stay alive.

In Wolf Kill, natural history writer Cary J. Griffith introduces readers to Sam Rivers, the predator’s predator, and weaves a masterful tale of danger and suspense in the far north.

Award-winning author Cary J. Griffith grew up among the woods, fields, and emerald waters of eastern Iowa. His childhood fostered a lifelong love of wild places. He earned a B.A. in English from the University of Iowa and an M.A. in library science from the University of Minnesota. Griffith’s books explore the natural world. In nonfiction, he covers the borderlands between civilization and wild places. In fiction, he focuses on the ways some people use flora and fauna to commit crimes, while others with more reverence and understanding of the natural world leverage their knowledge to bring criminals to justice. In both genres, readers are likely to learn something about our relationship to the natural world and the creatures who inhabit it. “I was 14 the first time I visited the lakes and boreal forests of northeastern Minnesota,” says Griffith, “and its beauty struck me.” Griffith is also the author of Gunflint Burning, Lost in the Wild, and Opening Goliath. He lives with his family in a suburb of Minnesota’s Twin Cities.