The Wild Inside

In Carbo’s evocative debut, a top-priority case takes Denver-based National Parks Service special agent Ted Systead to just about the last place he’d like to go—starkly beautiful Glacier National Park, where at age 14 he survived a grizzly bear attack that killed his father. Making matters worse, the murder Ted is investigating involves a man who was bound to a tree within the park and then mauled, probably while still alive, by a grizzly. Little of the investigation plays out predictably, especially once it emerges that the victim was an abusive meth head. As the haunted Ted struggles to come to terms with his history while navigating the twisty, increasingly scary trail the case takes, Carbo paints a moving picture of complex, flawed people fighting to make their way in a wilderness where little is black or white, except the smoky chiaroscuro of the sweeping Montana sky. [em]Agent: Nancy Yost, Nancy Yost Literary Agency. (June) [/em]