If you’re a nature lover you’ll quickly find Alice Henderson's Alex Carter series addictive. I certainly have. Following her adventure with Churchill’s polar bears, Alex returns to mountainous forest land owned by the Land Trust for Wildlife Conservation, chasing A GHOST OF CARIBOU.
When a trail cam suggests a mountain caribou, now extinct in most of America and possibly an explorer from a herd in Canada, is on the property, Alex is invited to work on the issue. As a research biologist, she can tranquilise the large animal and fit a collar to monitor its movements. This is a high-tech series, in which the latest research is presented and tools of the job are put to good use. Unlike most caribou, the endangered mountain subspecies live in forests and eat lichen hanging from the big trees during winter. However, nothing is simple. The old-growth forest nearby is marked for probable clearcutting. An irate logger keeps threatening the brave woman who has been camping out on top of a 200ft tree for months. Alex hears the yelling from her side of the fence line. And there are other malicious minds about.
The picture of northeastern Washington state is built up gradually, from the town with practical, resilient people, to the shocking discovery of a forest ranger’s body and growing concerns over a missing hiker. I didn’t like the sheer number of women-hating wrongheaded men. I did approve of the strong female role models, such as an experienced fire watcher, Kathleen, and Sheriff Maggie Taggert. A GHOST OF CARIBOU has similarities to the first in the series, A SOLITUDE OF WOLVERINES, because it’s in the same kind of location. But it makes sense that Alex would accept a job requiring her specialties and skills.
Alice Henderson has established her characters and doesn’t need to give us their backstory. Alex is kept grounded with phone calls to family and friends, that show us the outside world. Her multitool packing researcher is at home in the forests, and that’s the person who is needed to root out a terrible evil, as well as potentially saving the mountain caribou habitat. Bears are not the worst predator in these woods. But there are bears. A GHOST OF CARIBOU kept me reading late at night. Alice Henderson is using thrillers in remote locations to bring us human, relatable, modern issues, with the battle to save the natural environment front and centre.
When a remote camera on a large, rugged expanse held by the Land Trust for Wildlife Conservation picks up a blurry image of what could be a mountain caribou, they contact Alex Carter to investigate. After all, mountain caribou went extinct in the contiguous U.S. years ago, and if one has wandered down from Canada, it’s monumental.
But when Alex arrives on scene in the Selkirk mountains of northeastern Washington state, she quickly learns that her only challenge isn’t finding an elusive caribou on a massive piece of land. The nearby townspeople are agitated; loggers and activists clash over a swath of old growth forest marked for clearcutting. The murdered body of a forest ranger is found strung up in the town’s park, and Alex learns of a backcountry hiker who went missing in the same area the year before.
As she ventures into the forest in search of the endangered animal, she quickly finds herself in a fight for her life, caught between factions warring for the future of the forest and a murderer stalking the dense groves of ancient trees.
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