The wilderness keeps its secrets. But some crimes leave a trail too deadly to hide.​

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It begins with a missing dog in the spring thaw. Ranger Tom Avery follows the call into the Cutbank drainage and finds an illegal trap line set by someone who knows the land well. What looks at first like a poaching case soon starts pulling Moose Creek apart.

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Then an old recluse turns up dead, and a poaching case becomes a murder investigation. The trouble is that Tom knows nearly everyone tangled up in it. Every question he asks lands on a neighbor, a friend, or someone with good reason to keep quiet, and the more he pushes, the harder the town pushes back.

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The trail runs deeper than dead animals and a single body. It reaches into old debts, buried history, and quiet compromises Moose Creek settled long ago and would rather leave settled. This is a mystery about people as much as place, about the loyalties that hold a small town together and the things good folks tell themselves to sleep at night.

 

Grounded, atmospheric, and quietly relentless, Poachers and Poison is built for readers who love character-driven rural mysteries with a strong sense of place and a hero worth rooting for. Follow Tom Avery back into the Timberline backcountry and see what the woods have been hiding.