Baited - by Colleen O'Brien (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

It's 2004, the summer of Glacier Park's grizzly bear DNA study. In the Cut Bank Valley, Clancy Dyer dashes through the aspen to roust her coworker Ezra, but instead she finds his shredded tent and a horrible smell. Ezra has disappeared.

Meanwhile, District Ranger Mack Savage speeds toward the valley's car campground in response to his rookie ranger's report of unusual bear behavior. Mack has been dating Liz Ralston, the biologist conducting a groundbreaking DNA study. Saboteurs have wrenched her materials and she suspects both park personnel and a local climber. Frustrated with Mack's inability to protect her study, Liz has hired a Blackfeet tribal member and local packer who she knows carries a pistol and a grudge. Meanwhile, she may not be above taking her own revenge.

Set amidst Glacier's fierce beauty, Baited grapples with grief, multiple suspicious deaths, differing beliefs surrounding the protection of Glacier's grizzly bears, the park's fraught relationship with the adjacent Blackfeet Reservation, and especially how to reconcile one's love and affection for a person who has committed a reprehensible act.

Told primarily from Clancy and Mack's points of view but with some of the other characters taking center stage as needed, in particular the Native American stories that help shape the novel. The writing abounds with beautifully rendered passages and vivid thumbnail descriptions that make Glacier Park's majestic wilderness a character in itself.

Review Quotes

Colleen O'Brien casts a wicked, believable spell of deceit and heartbreak, a burn of a tale that begins to bubble and hiss, and then rapidly boil over. Imagine taking a walk in the dark woods with friends who have heartbreaking and monumental secrets to tell. Now imagine those friends are in Montana and the intertwine of their communal stories will take you to the edge of a precipice. Like all good mysteries, this story will catch you up. Baited is an intricately plotted masterpiece. A stunning, edge-of-your-seat drama. An exquisite all night read.

- Debra Magpie Earling

"Obrien has penned a lively, sure-footed novel that reads with the propulsive power of a whodunit yet still manages to deftly traverse the tricky terrains of gender, class, race, and community. Set in a small mountain town nestled up against the grandeur of Glacier National Park, Baited explores the wildness around us-and the wildness within."

-- Joe Wilkins, author of The Entire Sky and Fall Back Down When I Die