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This is just an exquisite novel, the best McClendon has produced to date. We're back with Alix Thorssen, artist and gallery owner in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, which lies in the shadow of the Teton Mountains, not far from Yellowstone National Park. It's a place where not long ago, and over the angry protests of ranchers, and hunters, the gray wolf was re-introduced, using Canadian imports. One older alpha male was nicknamed Old Blue. He survived two years and had a profound effect on the park rangers and ecologists who favored reentry of the wolf into the ecological mix of the Yellowstone-Teton ranges of the Rocky Mountains. Most people, encountering a wolf in the wild, are profoundly affected. McClendon has taken the spare facts and interwoven complexities of human existence in and around Jackson Hole, with the powerful presence of the Blue Wolf. As the characters in this novel rub up against Thorssen, Queen, the reclusive painter, Derek, the dead boy, Terry and Percy Vargas, ranchers and important personages in the area, and Sonny Garrett, attorney, mover and shaker, their lives are significantly changed by the Blue Wolf. Queen wants Alix, who's having personal relationship problems at the moment, to try to find out what really happened when Derek Wylie was killed. The problem is that Derek's death occurred over twenty years ago. The more a reluctant Alix probes, the more she comes to realize that there is more to the tragedy than first supposed. Her persistence pays off in startling and dangerous ways as she discovers that several people in town have vital information and there appears to be an informal agreement to keep that information secret. Moreover, important people want the entire episode erased from the public consciousness. And there is a dead wolf. Somebody shot a killed a young female wolf which may from be one of the Yellowstone packs. As tempers get out of control Alix sees prejudicial action taken against herself and against Queen. This is a tension-filled novel which shows McClendon's keen sense of people and their emotions and their conflicts. And always, watching from the mountains, as Alix and the others caught up in this surprising and twisting tale, is the avatar, the catalyst, the blue wolf. This is a powerful, moving novel.
Reviewed by Carl Brookins, September 2002
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