Battle Rugged Terrain and Violent Poachers in Roaring Good Thriller

The Vanishing Kind by Alice Henderson

It’s a rip-roaring, satisfying yarn with plenty of environment and wildlife lore included.

Alice Henderson — wildlife researcher, eco-warrior and author of heart-in-your-throat suspense-filled thrillers — has just published The Vanishing Kind, the fourth in her Alex Carter series.

Protagonist Alex must be like the proverbial cat with nine lives with several already spent from narrow escapes at the hands of serial killers and other off-kilter villains. She is a wildlife biologist who works as an independent contractor for various government and environmental agencies, such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, conducting field research on specific endangered mammals.

In each case study, she has survived hazardous adventures by the skin of her teeth while studying wolverines in Montana, polar bears in the Canadian Arctic and elusive caribou in the Selkirk Mountains. Readers with time constraints are welcome to drop in and read each novel independently. 

Part-Time Urbanite, Part-Time Jungle Jane

Alex Carter enjoys time spent in urban areas dining in restaurants, attending social and cultural events, and having living quarters with running water, hot showers, heat and a comfortable bed.

However, an ear is always cocked waiting for her phone to ring or a text to ping offering her a new opportunity to spend quality time alone in a remote wilderness area. There she sets up cameras and tracks, observes and tranquilizes wild animals to obtain data essential to help preserve endangered species.

The meditative contemplative work stimulates her and brings her peace and satisfaction. The life-threatening challenges she has faced have invariably originated from that deadliest of predators: man.

A Wild Childhood and Adulthood Confidantes

Her parents took her, their only child, wilderness camping and trained her in survival skills. Her mother was a Colonel and test pilot in the US Air Force who died while on a secret mission when Alex was 12 years old. She numbers her father as one of her two best friends.

Her dad is a highly successful plein-air landscape painter whose work is regularly exhibited. He is delighted to have been selected to spend his summer painting and teaching at Point Reyes in Northern California.

Zoe, her best friend since their undergraduate college days, is her other lifeline, a jobbing actress who resides in Los Angeles whose star is rising in the film industry. Zoe keeps her pal Alex entertained with Hollywood gossip and provides her entry into exclusive clubs, restaurants and parties when she visits.

A Mercenary and a Philanthropist

Alex hasn’t found or taken the time to have a significant other. There is an apparent mutual attraction with Ben Hathaway, regional director for the nonprofit organization “Land Trust for Wildlife Conservation” who has contracted her for some past jobs, but their paths cross only briefly when he is setting her up in a new assignment.

There is also a mysterious man named Casey, a former Special Operatives/Intelligence Services trained, highly skilled mercenary whose job assignments are top secret. Casey is like the Lone Ranger without a sidekick Tonto who appears periodically just in time to save her vegetarian bacon. As swiftly as he accomplishes his mission, he seemingly vanishes into thin air.

Mission to Save Endangered Jaguars

The current assignment is to locate jaguars in the vast high desert preserve in New Mexico which shares a long boundary with the states of Chihuahua and Sonora in Mexico. They are the only large cat species of the genus panther onca that is native to the Americas and notably well-established in the religions and mythology of Aztec and Mayan civilizations.

Their numbers have been decimated through habitat loss, poaching, and killing by ranchers who regard them as livestock predators. Their range extends from New Mexico and Arizona across Mexico into Central and South America.

This beautiful tawny and gold creature with black flecked rosettes is the largest cat in the Americas and the third largest cat in the world. Alex Carter feels privileged with this rare opportunity to determine the presence of these magnificent animals and to judge their health in aid of their preservation.

A Hoard of Anti-Immigrant Vigilantes

When Alex and Ben Hathaway arrived in Azulejo, the nearest town for supplies, to equip her cabin with groceries and other essentials, a festival was being celebrated with sidewalk tables set up by community artists and merchants. A joyful party atmosphere predominated until several white pickup trucks adorned with American flags and the stars and bars — and packed with angry vigilantes — roar into town wreaking havoc.

The men wear work shirts, jeans and boots while sporting masks with caps pulled down to further obscure their identities. Some are armed with baseball bats, others stand ready with flamethrowers. Tables are overturned, merchandise destroyed and fires set before they depart.

Their proclaimed verbal message was painfully simple and clear: “Hispanics get out! This area, town, state and the entire USA is for whites only!” There is little to be done as law enforcement claims they cannot identify the men and, if the truth were stated, would be disinclined to prosecute them. Ben is concerned for Alex’s safety but needs to catch a flight from Albuquerque after helping her establish base camp.

Living Rugged and Off the Grid

She has a portable satellite communication system to provide telephone access to her father, Kat and the outside world as mobile phone service is almost non-existent in the Mogollon Wildlife Sanctuary where she will be operating.

Her primitive one-room cabin is lit by lanterns augmented by solar-powered lamps she brought along, equipped with a propane-fueled stove and a hand-pumped supply of clean, cold water. There is a small outhouse attached to the building with a new composting toilet.

She has rigged up a sun shower near the trees for daytime usage. Alex also brought a small generator and portable solar panels to charge her laptop and phone. She is a vegetarian with little interest in food or its preparation other than to eat for sustenance, strength and energy.

New Friends — and Dangerous Enemies

Her nearest neighbors are a university archaeological team camped some distance away that is excavating a large dig, which includes the gravesite of a 16th-century Spanish conquistador. They have made some significant findings and discovered painfully the booby-traps the Spaniards set guarding the hidden treasures and artifacts with iron spring-loaded spears.

Alex also encounters a sweet, courageous couple who determinedly trudge up and down hillsides leaving gallon containers of fresh water near the border crossings.

Progress is made as Alex successfully sights and later tranquilizes and places a tracking collar on a mature, male jaguar to trace his movements and establish his habitat range. It takes little time before she is harassed and assaulted by vigilantes who won’t tolerate a federally endangered species interfering with sealing off the border to illegal immigration.

Action-Packed Adventure You Don’t Want to Miss

Author Alice Henderson does not disappoint action-seeking readers as tension mounts in The Vanishing Kind. There are chases through rough terrain, hand-to-hand combat and extensive use of weaponry along with many surprises.

Alex is captured, restrained, deprived of food and water, and experiences another death-defying encounter before the one-man cavalry shows up. (What? This is not a spoiler; there could not be a sequel if the protagonist were killed.) The body count is high, and brutal injuries among the human component abound. It’s a rip-roaring, satisfying yarn with plenty of environment and wildlife lore included.

A Character — and Author — That Cares

Both Alice Henderson and the fictional Alex Carter share concerns and fears about climate change; greed that leads to habitat destruction, overdevelopment and the extinction of various species; and the degradation of air and water quality that threatens the health and very life of our planet Earth.

The author provides a helpful afterword about jaguars followed by links with additional information in the back of the book about various environmental organizations and how individuals can participate.