The Nature of Things

I've been reading a number of debut novels recently and most of them have been enjoyable reading experiences. It really is quite remarkable how many talented writers there are out there who are just getting started in their careers. It seems that we are living in a golden age of fiction. Lucky us! And now here comes another first novel and it, too, is a winner.  There were a lot of things that I really liked about James A McLaughlin's Bearskin .  His protagonist is originally from Arizona but is on the run from the Sinaloa drug cartel and, because of a scanty background in science, has managed to secure a job as the caretaker of a remote private forest preserve in the Virginia Appalachians. Some of my favorite passages in the book come from this caretaker's (Rice Moore aka Rick Morton) observations of the ecological system in which he works. I found those observations particularly interesting because these are the flora and fauna that I grew up with and which were my first ...