In Deadly Turn, protagonist Patton Conover returns, along with her propensity to ask troublesome questions and show up where she’s not welcome. Patton is hired by a research firm to collect dead birds and bats at Maine wind-power generation sites. When a turbine explodes, she stumbles over part of a corpse, unwittingly implicating both herself and her beloved dog Pock. Under a brutal autumn heat wave and the unblinking scrutiny of Game Warden Moz (another mystery in her life), she’s drawn into a battle among wind-power developers, green-power activists, and locals. Adopted by a teenaged trapper who moves into her cabin with an illegal captive eagle, Patton is once again offered only outlaw solutions to fight for a disappearing world and clear her name.

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Read the opening chapters:

Alone on Eagle Ridge, I clutched a dying bat. Against all rabies advice, I pulled off my gloves to find the animal’s heart and my bare thumb stroked a tiny throb. At the last limp spasm, the bat’s eyes filmed over. My eyes blurred, too. Then I bent and smelled her, hoping she was female and we had something in common.

I liked to think I could smell leaves on animal sides, pond weeds on moose noses, and wind in bird feathers. It helped that I worked odd jobs for biologists who let me get close to wildlife that could no longer run from me. I liked to smell my way back into animals’ lives. I wasn’t sure about wind on the bat, but tiny insect bits crinkled against my nose when it touched her fur. They smelled like ancient parchment.

I closed my eyes and saw her. Almost as dark as the night around her, she turned toward a flying moth, chirping as she closed in . . . read more >