The Last Woman In The Forest

In Diane Les Bequets' The Last Woman in the Forest (#831), Marian Engstrom is working in the wilderness with her tracker dogs on wildlife conservation projects when she is informed of the death of her lover, Tate Mathias, on a different conservation project in Washington state.  She had met Tate when she joined the group, and their romance looked promising until the details began to unravel about the unsolved deaths of a group of young women called the Stillwater Murders near the Montana headquarters of her conservation group.

As Marian grieves and collects Tate's belongings, she vows to learn more about the man she was involved with.  The details prove to be unsettling, especially after she connects with a retired criminal profiler who seems to take an interest in Marian's quest.

There is much of interest about the methods used by groups like the one in the book to track and monitor the health of endangered wildlife populations by using dogs to track their scat.  It can be analyzed for an accurate picture of the food sources of the target populations, approximate numbers and range of the animals by methodically covering wilderness sectors.  In many ways, this was the best part of the book.

The cover blurb says the book is "twisty", but I have to admit the ending telegraphed itself not very far into the book, so I kept waiting for the big reveal.  It did eventually come, and it was exactly the way I expected it to play out.

Other than that, it was entertaining enough, but upon reading the author's notes at the end, she sees this as a "mission" book to empower women to speak up about male physical, emotional and sexual abuse.  It didn't work at all for me on that level, but her aim is noble.