Fish & Wildlife Agent Venus Diamond is used to dealing with the strong emotions and offbeat personalities of the environmentalists that populate her Pacific Northwest. But someone's gone too far when Louie Song, a friend and co-worker, is presumed drowned after the bombing of a dam. It's up to Venus to find the bomber and sort out the complicated issues behind a deadly outbreak of eco-terrorism threatening the Columbia river valley.
Skye Kathleen Moody weaves a tale of suspense and intrigue, all the while untangling the surprisingly complex face of contemporary environmentalism with characteristic wit and acumen.
I appreciate a good, well structured mystery, but there are a few things that stop me cold. First, this book is peppered with factual errors. Neither Venus Diamond, a Fish & Wildlife Agen (our heroine), nor the author, who is reported to live in the Northwest where she sets her novels, know much at all about salmon, their environment, predators, or their life cycle.
If you have a character who is a fish and wildlife agent, it's a good idea to do some research about fish and wildlife. There's a truism for you.
The book might have worked better for me if not for the blundering of Venus Diamond in her area of expertise (and who names a character Venus Diamond? Impossible to take seriously), whole thing comes across as swollen and rather full of itself.
In an effort to give this author a fair chance, I read two other of her books -- Medusa (giant jellyfish, Russian mobsters, missing children) and The Good Diamond. The Good Diamond goes into the international diamond cartel and the issue of blood diamonds. I would have found this interesting, but given earlier experiences I am hesitant to put any faith in the facts as presented.
Getting soooo interesting! lol Venus is always in the middle of something and this time she ends up in Eastern Washington, undercover, trying to keep all the dams on the Colombia River from being blown up by people that want to let the fish through. What I find interesting about Ms. Moody's series is that she not only tells a fun, serious mystery, but she brings forth the issues we face now about our impact on our environment and what we are doing to the planet and the wild life. Every story is great and all her books are going on to my "keeper" shelf. Next I'm reading Medusa, the next book in the series.
Skye Kathleen Moody's "Venus Diamond" series takes place in the northwest, Washington and Oregon mostly. Venus is an agent with the National Fish and Wildlife agency. In this book she is working to prevent a home-grown terrorist group from blowing up damns along the Columbia River. These are very enjoyable books that also shed some light on environmental issues, and Venus's personal life keeps getting more complicated as well.