cover image In a High and Lonely Place

In a High and Lonely Place

Steve Voien. HarperCollins Publishers, $20 (281pp) ISBN 978-0-06-016506-2

Voien juggles elements of a suspense thriller, exotic travelogue, love story and naturalist's log in an exhilarating first novel. American biologist David Trowbridge, the world's foremost expert on the snow leopard, wants to set up a national park in a remote northern corner of Nepal. But one member of his expedition, who may be a spy for the Indian government, has his own designs on the territory. Chinese expansionist policies also come into play. David's romance with Nima, a young runaway from Katmandu who escaped her appointed role as the incarnation of a goddess, seems genuine; his guide, a lama's son named Norbu, seeks to avenge the death of his father from whom a golden statue of a dragon had been stolen. In Trowbridge's adventures, Voien ably fuses romantic subplots with realistic portrayals of endangered wildlife and of a native population similarly endangered by political and environmental change. (Jan.)