The Turquoise Dragon

by David Rains Wallace

When ex-forest ranger George Clark uncovers the murdered body of a naturalist friend in California's Klamath Mountains and understands his friend's startling discovery, he is drawn into the orbit of a millionaire who made his fortune trading in endangered species

Genres: Mystery Thriller, Fiction

230 pages, Hardcover

First published March 12, 1985

About the author

David Rains Wallace is an author of geography and geology related books. His book, The Klamath Knot, was awarded the John Burroughs Medal in 1984.

Reviews

[Andrea · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was chock-full of annoyances: 1) It is supposed to be a mystery, but it's not really. 2) There are incidents that are not fully explained - and not because the author is trying to be mysterious. When I finished I felt that there were about 100 pages or more that could have been added to make the story complete. The author didn't elaborate on much of anything. The story had real potential, but that's it. There was no real substance.

The one redeeming quality: the nature descriptions.

[Rebecca I · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author has a great way of being able to describe the landscape and country; all the natural beauty of this region. Other than that, the plot didn't seem that compelling and the characters didn't come to life as "real". There was a sort of ambivalent ending which usually makes me think the book is weak - as if the author just wanted to finish the main action and then ran out of ideas, or was too tired to wrap the story up in a believable manner. I always expected something more to happen.

[Bea · Rating 3 out of 5]

A teenage boy's fantasy of adventuresome mayhem in Northern CA. Silly plot and a main character who doesn't see women as people. The best part of this book is the setting, which is well described. The fast pace would make this good beach reading.

Aside: I don't know why you would stop in Eureka for gas on your way from Trinity County to Crescent City.

[Sasha Strader · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really had to drag myself through parts of this, but others were so compelling I hated to put it down. Not really like anything I'd ever read before: Turquoise Dragon is about a man whose friend was murdered and he does a little investigation on his own, only to get pulled into a bigger string of events than he could of imagined.

Here we have love, suspense, murder, drugs, and...ecology?

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really liked this one a lot although its not that good, if you know what I mean.

[Laura]

It's been so long, but I remember loving the nature imagery.

[Jordan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The last half of the book made up for the first half. I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it, and it reminded me a lot of childhood reads where maybe the writing wasn't stellar, but you were in it for the escape anyway and this book had a nice sort of way about it. Quick read, the nature elements were really beautiful, and the characters weren't completely dull.

[Lorraine McCleary · Rating 3 out of 5]

A young man living in Trinity Co, CA has an old friend who was a biologist who dies from a gunshot wound to his head. His friend had been bringing back cocaine from SA. It appears to be a drug related murder, but a rare salamander which appears to have been planted in a CA canyon slated for development by him leads to a sinister group of rare animal collectors.

[Lyra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a great masterpiece, but hard not to love a mystery novel that takes place partly on the Salmon River.

[Chana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reads well but has gaps in the timeline and the logic that are never adequately filled in. So even though I enjoyed it I felt like it was incomplete.
George used to be a Forest Ranger, he now does reforestation He grew marijuana for awhile but he is not doing that during the timeline of the story. He is friends with Tom, has been since elementary school. He pops in for a visit with Tom and finds his friend dead, gunshot wound to the head. George calls the police but leaves out some information he doesn't think that they need thereby making himself a subject of interest when the police uncover those things he failed to say. So George goes back to his trailer (he is divorced as is Tom), his cat and his tree seedlings. A couple of guys come to his place saying their boss wants to hire him for reforestation. But the whole deal seems somewhat off as does the owner of the property. The owner doesn't want the 5 best areas of his land reforested. Why? He only wants to use his own labor. Why? George spends a night on this owner's property and this takes place in the middle of the night, "Barking and snarling, the Dobermans; but there were other sounds, high-pitched yammering and squealing. Pigs? Something ran past the window, then ran back again, pursued by something that seemed to be giggling in an owlish sort of way. A loud burst of growling, snarling, and howling erupted over the entire compound, it seemed. Then gunfire, automatic gunfire,..." ---- well I couldn't figure out what giggling in an owlish sort of way would even sound like. Nor is the whole incident explained. This is a book where things happen and things are intimated but not explained. And then, after some near death experiences for some, and death experiences for others, it ends.
I was left holding this book and thinking where is the rest of it?
I enjoyed what writing there was. Take this sentence: "Society may be a web of aggression, of property as theft, but it's dusty with legalistic normality, so we forget there are spiders in it." The author has written about the environment without getting preachy which made the subject more interesting.

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Doofus protagonist, evil villains, gorgeous northwestern CA/southern OR scenery. Is there really mail delivery in Junction City/down river?