A Solitude of Wolverines is the first book in the Alex Carter series by Alice Henderson. When the book opens Alex Carter is a wildlife biologist living in Boston preparing for a speech about a study on an endangered bird species. The event and thus her speech are interrupted when a shooter decides to take revenge because the study stopped a rather lucrative development deal of his. Rather shaken up about what happened, Alex decides to accept the sudden opportunity to study wolverines on a wildlife sanctuary in Montana. However, her respite from people and danger is not quite what she expected when she discovers that the locals don’t actually like the idea of people studying the wolverines and preventing illegal use of the lands in the sanctuary. It also doesn’t help that there seems to be something else going on when her cameras pick up a seemingly injured man deep in the sanctuary. The man disappears before he can be found but things just continue getting weirder and not adding up as Alex continues investigating the wolverines and keeping an eye on anything else that may potentially be brewing.
I had a general idea of what this was going to be going in but I was still enthralled once I actually got started. The idea that a wildlife biologist stumbles upon mysteries while conducting various wildlife studies is rather unusual but it ended up being pretty good. It started out explaining what led to Alex being way out there on the remote sanctuary and then did a good job of explaining how one would conduct the type of study Alex is doing. You can definitely tell the author knows what they are doing in that field and is willing to pay attention to the details being included. The plot was a little odd in that parts of it seemed slow to develop and the final scheme was only revealed way late in the book but the gradual build up of tension was great. The way everything ended up being revealed actually worked out even if it seemed slow or late in the book because it built on the little things that had been revealed earlier. It wasn’t entirely straightforward and it did have a few twists and turns but it wasn’t anything that was huge, so to speak. I will say that while it might not have kept me guessing it did keep my attention. The character of Alex Carter was also pretty interesting and I rather warmed up to her over the course of the book. She came across as totally human and only marginally put together, which is completely relatable. Considering almost the entire story is her perspective you really get to know her by the end of the story and I am pretty curious about where she is going next in the series. I am happy giving this book four out of five stars.
This book is a pretty good example of an adult mystery or thriller novel and would hold the most appeal for readers who prefer that type of story. At the same time I doubt it would hold a lot of appeal for readers who don’t enjoy that. Considering the story opens with a small shootout there is obviously violence present in the story but all things considered it is mostly mild and not all that graphic. I would say that anybody over the age of about fifteen or sixteen could read this and be fine. One other thing to consider is that this book does deal with some cruelty towards animals and a borderline abusive relationship so keep that in mind when considering this book. It is pretty good though and I hope you will consider trying. Remember to share your thoughts in the comments if you do.