Floyd Hunsacker is exploring caves in 1870s Oregon when he comes across animal remains; seconds later, he’s consumed by a huge creature. Thirty years later, Chenoa Winterhawk is working as a guide in the same territory, leading a group on a tour in a dirigible. She’s traveling with a Maj. Quinn—he does not want his daughter with his late Chinese wife to be deported, so he’s completing a task for the Army Corps of Engineers. Another man, Lt. Misciso, hijacks the tour. Misciso is a malevolent presence from the beginning, acting with hostility toward Chenoa. When she presses him about where he intends to go, he’s cagey. He forces the dirigible to land, and the group encounters Chenoa’s uncle Akando, someone her father warned her to avoid; it’s clear something nefarious is afoot. Akando is after money that belonged to a separatist group, and believes it’s in a mine to which Quinn has a map. Things take a deadly turn when Chenoa escapes and tries to get to the mine before Akando does. Scenes depicting the massive creature from the prologue mauling and eating people in the community are interspersed throughout the story (“A massive shape rumbled through the dense underbrush of the forest. It looked like an enormous trunk had sprung legs, only this tree had white bark covering it”), indicating the danger that awaits Chenoa if she reaches her destination. Federal agents, along with Theodore Roosevelt, are also in pursuit. Can Chenoa survive Akando’s pursuit and the creature living in the mine? Buzan maintains a compelling sense of tension throughout the novel, which is incredibly violent and has very high stakes. The inclusion of some of the historical exposition is understandable—this is likely a chapter of U.S. history with which many readers are unfamiliar—but a little clunky; this story was clearly well researched, but the level of detail can distract from the narrative’s forward momentum. Still, it’s a thrilling, bloody yarn with an unusual setting.
