The trail from Timmy Tom leads Rachel to the Happy Hunting Ranch, a ranch that allows wealthy hunters to shoot exotic, big game. Rachel is immediately suspicious of the wealthy owner, FU Krabbs. When she learns he is connected to Dr. Martin Pierpont who claims he is going to clone Krabb’s dog, Rachel grows more suspicious.

As Rachel traces the various players’ associations and a trail of bio-research companies, she keeps coming back to Krabbs. She guesses the connection between Krabbs and Timmy Tom is the monkeys and other primates that Timmy Tom illegally transported across the Mexican border.

As Rachel begins to get close to the truth and various attempts are made to scare her off, she becomes unsure she can trust. When she chooses to trust Dan Kitrell, a former non-medical researcher searching for his chimp, Gracie, as she puts the final pieces of the puzzle together, she hopes the choice won’t cost her life. A tense conclusion takes Rachel and Dan to an underground research facility where both their worst fears are realized. Rachel’s brush with death and resolution, in the final scene is a bit unbelievable and hurried and a few loose ends remain, but the final chapter nicely ties everything together.

Border Prey is a tightly written mystery with plenty of Southwestern atmosphere. The desolate country makes a stark backdrop to a very disturbing problem. Speart’s characters are colorful and Rachel has a keen, biting sense of humor. The structure of the mystery is very complex, with each of the characters related to the others in unexpected ways.

The premise of the mystery and the medical research that is uncovered, may prove disturbing to some readers, as will the Happy Hunting Ranch. Rachel and Dan, as well as others, are very vocal in their commitment and concerns to protect all species of animals, and their actions echo their words. Although there are no explicit scenes involving the animal experiments or cruelty to animals, the suggestion of the research may be enough to turn some readers away.

--Jennifer Monahan Winberry