A Cast of Falcons

Burrows’s intriguing third Birder Murder Mystery series featuring Det. Chief Insp. and bird lover Domenic Jejeune (the first book, A Siege of Bitterns, won the Crime Writers of Canada 2015 Award for Best First Novel) opens as a man falls from a cliff in western Scotland, and another man watching with binoculars finds the body, tucks a bird guidebook in the corpse’s pocket, and leaves. When Scottish police show Domenic the book, he immediately recognizes it as a call for help from his older brother, Damian, a criminal fugitive. If he answers the call and doesn’t turn his brother in, he risks not only his career but going to prison himself. Aside from that dilemma, his own police division in Saltmarsh also has a murder case to solve after a former employee of a carbon-capture research project is found dead in the woods surrounding the facility. The property is owned by Emirati princes, whose prized gyrfalcons, some of nature’s most lethal hunters, also enter the story. Burrows skillfully makes birds and birding an integral part of the plot, just as he brings Jejeune’s personal drama into this suspenseful and well-constructed mystery. [em]Agent: Bruce Westwood, Westwood Creative Artists. (June) [/em]