Rachel Reviews: The Trout Wail by Greg Buck

Greg Buck has written something in "The Trout Wail" which is an unexpected and rather enjoyable thriller.

The book starts with Molly Hund having a fallout with her boss, Donald, a seemingly innocuous disagreement which we soon learn has much deeper repercussions for Molly, as Donald is not all that he seems to be and the extent of his reach and his purpose is made manifest as the book progresses. Also ,at the start of the book, Molly then has to defend herself against hired hurters and manages to escape and is helped in this by coyotes, who appear to protect her.

Molly is the main character who we follow along with her brothers, Elias and Franz and we learn about their family history as the plot of the book progresses. Having lost both parents, Molly and her twin brothers have been brought up by Malaki, their grandfather and Buck shows Molly's childhood and what she has learned from this man, known to the locals as a hermit, by using flashbacks from Molly's memories.

Molly, Elias and Franz are unusual. I will tell you that creatures with dog-like presence feature heavily in this book, from tame domestic sorts to the larger more lupine kind and this lends the narrative a kind of mysticism, a connectedness to the natural world, a similarity which echoes Native American beliefs which I rather liked. The Hunds are the good guys and you root for them throughout as they fight for what they love and want to protect - the environment they live in and the other animals who share it with them. Obviously, a trout figures in the story too, representative of a threatened species, hence the title.

There is much to like about this book. It flows and is well-written by Buck. There is plenty of action with fights and confrontations galore and Buck is good at describing these in just enough detail to make it visual. Molly is a strong female protagonist who is likeable and has presence throughout. She is dynamite! She shows courage and wile and I enjoyed reading a book with a truly strong female protagonist, sure of herself and in what she believes. Dialogue is realistic and I romped like a coyote in the hunt through my reading of the whole book.

If I have a complaint it was that the type was small on my Kindle and I was not able to adjust it in the settings but this was minor and certainly didn't put me off from reading it.

I sense that there is the potential for more adventures from the Hunds. And there clearly is as I didn't realise at the time of writing this, and maybe I should have found out, that this was book 3 in a series on the Hunds so the comment is probably a bit defunct really. However, if there were ones before this, then it stands to reason that there will be ones after this and I, for one, will look forward to reading them.

And I think I may have to seek out books 1 and 2 and see where the narrative starts for this family of eco-conscious and slightly unusual heroes of the outdoors. I don't really like to read series out of order but I will make an exception in this instance.

Rachel Rating: 4/5 stars

Parts of this review were previously published on Reedsy Discovery where I was privileged to read the book as an ARC:

https://reedsy.com/discovery/book/the-trout-wail-greg-buck#review

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