Mike is a cowboy who works for Jeannette Coulter and the Square C Ranch. He used to be with the LAPD until a bullet to the abdomen made him an ex-cop and a vegetarian. He’s also secretly in love with Jeanette. His life is hard but fulfilling, and the place in Montana is beautiful.
Then one day it gets very complicated. A paleontologist claiming to be from a university, and bringing two beautiful assistants, arrives to ask about dinosaur bones on the Square C and the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) property she grazed. She has to be convinced, but Dr. Pickford is persuasive. Meanwhile, someone has killed one of their bulls by bashing in its head, slashing its throat and leaving a note crediting an enviroterroist gang. Before long, a human victim is found, too.
Jeanette decides to send Mike and her teenage son Ray and his girlfriend Amelia to hunt for dinosaur bones with “Pick” and his assistants, Laura and Tanya, who is Russian. The work in interesting and there are lots of T-rex bones to be found. But Mike keeps hearing a low motor noise at night, and wonders how honest Pick really is. Mike accidentally finds Pick in bed with Jeanette, and even though he is upset, he can’t say anything because he has never told Jeanette about his feelings for her.
Over time, Mike realizes he is falling for the lovely Tanya, who is falling for him right back. Her past comes back to haunt her when a nearby rancher turns out to have been a porn producer in Hollywood before taking up ranching. He has some very unpleasant friends. The local mayor, Edith Brescoe, is an ex-lover of Mike’s, and her husband is the local BLM agent. He is a very unpleasant man, with a vicious temper, and a dark secret of his own.
Mike discovers another body, a dangerous-looking Russian associate of Cade Morgan. Like the previous bodies (animal and human) his throat is cut and his head bashed in. His tattoos indicate membership in the Russian Mob. Mike figures it’s not the last Russian mobster he will see, and he is right. At Blackie Butte, the work to flatten the hill was proceeding and they were finding a whole family of T-rex, when Tanya explains why Ted was in he room and why Mike has no reason to be jealous. Ted is gay.
Jeanette figures out that the bones are valuable to a museum and since they are on her land, she plans to get paid for them. She’s right, but then a rustler of sorts comes onto her land: Cade and his Russian friends are determined to take the bones, and they are also determined to kill everyone on the dig except maybe Pick. Turns out that a highly-placed townsperson is involved, too, which shocks Mike but not Jeanette. Unhappily for the bad guys, these cowboys and cowgirls are armed to the teeth. It’s not going to go the way they want, but there will be casualties. Just like the stories Pick told of the Mama T-rex protecting her family, Mike will protect his unconventional family no matter what.
Homer Hickam brings another exciting story! Multi-layered characters, interesting settings, and his real-life long-time interest in hunting dinosaur bones in the ranchlands and badlands of Montana, where the story is set, combine for a monster of a tale.
(Repeat title, author and publisher.) I’m Doc Kirby and that’s a Book Bit.
On The Bookshelf 