Definitely all that the blurb says - "raw, visceral, compelling" and yet for some reason I was underwhelmed. It has lovely language, amazing descriptions, but I cannot empathize with the protagonist Rice. It doesn't feel to me like the kind of guy he is would take on the bear poaching issue. And to me, it feels a little too "literary" for the kind of story it is. The setup of the story is good, the flashbacks are excellent, the characters well done. It certainly kept my attention. Rice's blackout moments are little weird, but I'm certain the author's intent was to have the reader be unsure along with Rice what is real and what is imagined. This is one of those times where I wish I were better at critical analysis so I could put my finger on exactly what bothered me about it. I can see why it got such great reviews, but it won't make my 10 best list this year.

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The protagonist in this novel is Rice Moore who is on the run from a Mexican drug cartel. He was a drug mule for the Sinoloa cartel where his girlfriend ended up being tortured and killed. He has hopefully escaped this past by taking a job as the caretaker for a nature preserve in the mountains of Virginia. But he soon runs across someone who is poaching bears for their gall bladders and paws which are sold on the black market to China. In addition, Sara, the former caretaker of the preserve had been viciously assaulted and raped while she was serving there. So Rice is out to stop the bear poaching and he also wants to find out who attacked Sara. This all leads him to a local motorcycle gang but can he identify the attackers. On top of this, he is also on the lookout for someone from the cartel seeking vengeance against him.

I mostly enjoyed this intense thriller with its backdrop of Appalachian America and the various characters who make it their home. This included the poor young men with their racial prejudices who strived to make an impression just to join a biker gang; the local hunters and farmers with their groups of hounds; and the local law who treated Rice as an outsider. One thing I found a little disconcerting were instances where Rice goes into a fugue and I was sometimes unsure if what he saw was real or imagined. And then there is the Bear poaching. This is actually the third book I have read recently where bear poaching comes into play. The others were Cold by John Smolens and Mexican Hat by Michael McGarrity. This evidently is a problem as articles on the web show including this one published by the Los Angeles Times stating that "demand for bear parts in Asia and in Chinatowns around the world has fueled a bear-poaching industry." Overall, I did find this book to be quite compelling and I enjoyed reading it.

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