In 1889 in the fictional town of Port Bonita, based on Port Angeles, we meet a varied cast: explorer James Mather, aspiring journalist andutopian Eva Lambert, entrepreneur Ethan Thornburgh, and members of the local Klallam tribe. The Klallam, increasingly surrounded by white settlers who seek to change the landscape, find themselves losing their old ways.Thornburgh arrives in Port Bonita in pursuit of Eva, and stakes a claim on land on the Elwha River, where he dreams up a plan to dam its mighty waters and bring industry to the area.Mather puts together an expedition toconquer the Olympics and soon finds his band may instead be conquered bythe fierce wilderness. Eva seeks to stop theconstruction of the dam but finds her journalistic efforts thwarted by thecapitalist investors who back the project.

Fast forward to 2006, and we meet a new cast of characters. Jared Thornburgh, the great great grandson of the dam's creator,now is faced with aiding the effort to tear down the dam in order to restore the salmon population.Fish processingplant manager, Dave Krigstad, who spends his free time searching for Sasquatch in the Olympic forests, takes a young Klallam teen under his wing as a job intern.His efforts to help lead him to a friendship with his mom, Rita, who's in an abusive realtionship. Tillman Timmon, a recently released convict, takesa job at the plant, only to break parole and escape into the wilderness to try to survive alone.His parole officer, who hates the outdoors,sets off on a trek to find Timmon and bring him back.The lives of these characters intertwine and are uncannily shaped byforces in theirancestral past.

This is a sprawling, ambitious novel, multi-layered and complex, spanning two alternating time periods.Throughwell-written characters and realistic dialogue, Evison draws a pictureofthedamage caused by the settlers' ambitionsas they soughtto shape the natural environment to their own needs. The long-lasting impact on the native Klallam people issadly evident. Yet in the end,these various storiescome together ina satisfying and hopeful conclusion.

A fascinating and short history about bears and the relationship between bears and man by Bernd Brunner. Throughout history a love/hate relationship with bears has been recorded and continues. We fear them;i.e., The Edge; and yet have turned them into our favorite child's toy--the beloved Teddy Bear. And why is it called a Teddy Bear? Are bears endangered? Are they predators? How many people have they killed? Which is the most vicious? Are they intelligent? Do they smile? Are they familiar or loners? Can they live as man's companion? How can you protect yourself from them?

Bernd answers all these questions precisely and concisely. There are many great illustrations too. Whether you like or fear bears or are just looking for an informative and interesting read, this book will captivate you. Bears: A Brief History should be on your reading list.

The story starts with the birth of Ashton Hilary Akbar Pelham-Martyn in the Himalayan Mountains. His father was a well-to-do English eccentric linguist and botanist and his mother was a wildly romantic impetuous young woman who did not fit and did not want to be smothered by the standards that the Victorian British Empire held women. She dies in childbirth and a few years later his father and the rest of the household -- I use the term household loosely, I should say expedition because they were always travelling looking for new plants and new languages - die in a cholera outbreak. Ashton is left with his nursemaid and she decides to travel to themountains from where she came and to raise him as her real son. She kept hidden the money and the paperwork proving that Ashton was English and it wasn't until her death that he discovered he was a British citizen. He made a promise to her to find his English family and become English. Ash does find his family and he feels smothered by their Victorian standards of behavior and their feelings of British superiority over the people of the India. He also sees some of the same behavior on the Indian side with the caste system. This is the real center of the story for me. He has a foot in both worlds and it tears him apart -- Neither side will completely trust him, the British because of his love of India and her people and the conquered Indians see him as belonging to the invaders. However the British Army sees him as an excellent tool, spy if you will because of his proficiency with languages and his understanding of the cultures.

This does not come close to all what happens in The Far Pavilions. The romance is fraught with peril, the author M. M. Kaye has made the history come alive and Ash has adventure after adventure. I have read it three times and I have focused on a different aspect each time. Okay I still focus on the romance, but I enjoyed the history and I have looked for and read other books about the British Raj, it is a fascinating time. Maybe next month I'll blog about one of them.

Ferrigno, who was once a rock music critic in Seattle (he co-founded the venerable music mag, "The Rocket"!) before moving to southern California to write eccentric noir mysteries set down there, has created a pretty intriguing premise, and his main characters are smartly drawn, starting with the main character, former elite Muslim warrior, Rakkim "Rikki" Epps.

Plus, the bad guys are full of charm (you'll love the chance to hate them!) and Ferrigno's depiction of a future dystopian Seattle is pretty cool, too!

And once this story is satisfyingly resolved, you can continue Epps's story in two equally thrilling sequels: Sins of the Assassin andamp; Heart of the Assassin.