Rare Bird Alert - Softcover

Peake, R H

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1953150187 ISBN 13: 9781953150189

Publisher: Lettra Press LLC, 2020

Synopsis

On a flight to a birding tour in Australia, Margaret Smith develops a friendship with Hammond ("Porky") Frank. On the first part of the tour, they become close friends, although Margaret ("Maggie") becomes suspicious of Porky. On the northern part of the trip, they are joined by a new assistant leader, Jameson Kanger, who begins a scheme with Porky. Left to herself, Maggie spends time with other tour members, especially Patricia Shaper, a young Olympic Women's Trap Skeet champion. Kanger drugs Shaper and rapes her. Patsy confides in Maggie and they avoid Kanger and Porky the rest of the tour, although Porky renews his relationship with Maggie when she returns to Galveston, Texas. She arranges a meeting for him with Mackensie Craft, a wealthy birder willing to pay to see a rare and supposedly extinct Eskimo curlew. The proposed sighting goes awry as Shaper intrudes and, in the confusion, Craft kills Hammond and Kanger. Two local policemen try to solve the murders. They eventually do even though they are also working on a case involving a serial rapist, but Craft disappears. So, the murder mystery becomes a manhunt during which the policemen are married by women who help them apprehend the serial rapist.

About this title

About the Author

An over seventy-year naturalist and birder, Peake has listed over half of the world's 10,000+ species of birds, including the cousin of the Eskimo curlew, the little curlew, the star of Rare Bird Alert. He has spent a lifetime wishing to see an Eskimo curlew and has known people who saw the last authenticated record of one on Galveston Island in 1963. He now lives in Galveston and still hopes to see one. He has published several books of poetry and four other novels: Jaykyll's Joust, an academic satire, Moon's Black Gold, and Beauty's No Biscuit, two novels dealing with murder and romance in the Appalachians during the coal boom of the 60's and 70's, and Love and Death on Safari, murder, and romance set on an African birding tour.

Edition details

• Publisher: Lettra Press LLC
• Publication date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1953150187
• ISBN 13: 9781953150189
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 182