cover image The Snow Falcon

The Snow Falcon

Stuart Harrison. St. Martin's Press, $23.95 (288pp) ISBN 978-0-312-20166-1

Though it contains substitute ingredients, New Zealander Harrison's first novel sticks close to the recipe for success that made The Horse Whisperer a bestseller. Take one wounded animal (a falcon), one emotionally scarred child (Jamie Baker, who hasn't spoken since witnessing his father's death in a hunting accident) and one lonely, attractive woman (Susan, Jamie's mother). Add a wilderness setting (western Canada) and a bird whisperer (neophyte falconer Michael Somers). Blend vigorously until falcon heals, boy speaks and woman loves again. As the novel opens, a rare gyrfalcon, blown from its icebound Northern home by fierce storms, circles the inhospitable skies near Little River Bend. Michael is also a reluctant arrival. Absent from his hometown for two decades, he served a brief prison sentence for an incident ""back east"" seven years earlier. His reputation, embellished by local gossip, precedes him. Despite a hostile reception, he stays to probe psychic wounds left by his estranged father's death and his mother's suicide. When the falcon is wounded by a poacher, Michael rescues it, takes a crash course in falconry and, after the bird heals, begins training it for its return to the wild. Jamie and Susan, who live next door, become intrigued. Although Harrison laces his story with interesting details about the art of falconry, his narrative style is often awkward and nearly everything the reader might reasonably expect to happen eventually does. The result is a predictable novel that fails to rise above its derivative concept. Major ad/promo; audio rights to Brilliance; rights sold in U.K., Germany, Norway, Holland, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, France, Spain, Italy, Greece and Israel. (Feb.)