Customer Reviews

Bird Brained (Rachel Porter Mysteries)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Rachel Porter once again finds herself up to her ears in contraband wildlife of all sorts. Constantly trying to deal with two-legged, four-legged and no legged animals, she searches for the source of a bird smuggling ring. Her search leads her into the worlds of reptile smugglers (with enough creeping snakes to make my skin crawl for days), cigar rolling, wild cat collectors, and strange photographers.

Speart creates some of the most memorable and colorful characters around. Even with the changing settings of her series, likeable and entertaining characters abound at each stop. I miss the old ones, and love the new ones. In Bird Brained, some of the characters from Gator Aide have returned and added more dimension to Rachel Porter's life. Getting to the end of the story isn't half as much fun as the trip you take to get there. Speart can create some very memorable scenes.

There are very few authors whose books make it to my "gotta have it the first day of release" list. Speart's books are on that list.

You won't think about cigar smoking the same way after reading Bird Brained. And you might want to rush out and take Lambada lessons! <G> The only downside to reading this book is the long wait for the next one.

Fish and Wildlife Agent Rachel Porter is a fabulous and very believable character. Placed in a job mainly considered by her various superiors (all male) to be a "man's" job she fights the bad guys and the social stigma (that in reality is ALL too common even in the year 2000) to show that women CAN do anything they put their minds to. Jessica Speart does wonderful research on the locations and geography of the locations Rachel is assigned to and enlightens readers on issues of endangered species and lands, poaching, legal issues in prosecuting violators etc. all the while keeping us alternately laughing out loud and sitting on the edge of our seats. You can't help but be touched by the diverse, hysterical and lovable recurring friends whose personalities and quirks make them more memorable with each new novel. Get to work Jessica - we're waiting!

Jessica Speart is not as well known as some mystery writers, and hence her books are afordable. Still I hope it happens because she is a wonderful writer. Her character of Rachel Porter is completely believable with a sense of humor I would kill for. Probably not a word I should use here since that is what her co-characters are always doing in the most interesting places. This book combines the excitement of South Florida with the thrill of the hunt--this time for endangered beautiful birds. Her books have multi-dimensional characters, and I never tire of them. Indeed, I am ready to turn to her latest set in Texas. Maybe Jessica will consider the Bluegrass for a setting since our catfish are some of the best, to say nothing of the endangered bats of the Mammoth Cave. But wherever Jessica spins her tale, I'll be there to pick it up and read. Join me?

Once again Rachel Porter, U. S. Fish and Wildlife Agent, has been relocated. She's always getting into situations that her superiors do not approve of and in the end she receives a new assignment. This time she's in southern Florida.

Rachel follows a hot tip and goes to the compound of Alberto Dominguez, alleged smuggler of exotic cockatoos and parrots. She finds him dead and all of his birds gone. She discovers he was also smuggling Cuban cigars.

Her Cuban boss, Carlos Cardenas, almost gives the case to her co-worker, Phil, but she does some fancy footwork so that she can continue investigating. He makes it clear that the birds are her business, not the killers.

Willy Weed worked for Dominguez smuggling birds and eggs into the U.S. Unfortunately Willy owns quite an extensive collection of snakes and is very sleazy. His ex-wife Bambi keeps telling Rachel information in the hopes of getting Willy in trouble and thus to leave her alone.

Rachel finds herself getting deeper and deeper into a smuggling ring that appears to have ties to anti-Castro terrorists. Her friend Terri comes to visit and ends up helping her get to know the right people. Terri also helps Rachel keep her mind off breaking up with Jake Santou, her lover. There are many dangers involved in her uncovering the many players in this smuggling ring. Rachel finds herself face to face with snakes and wild cats.

I always enjoy reading books in this series. Rachel is a great character. She's very strong, but yet a woman. I must say that some of the situations she gets into make my skin crawl, but that just makes me want to keep reading to find out how she gets out of the situation! I also like the different locations as I feel as if I have traveled there with her.

This is a terrific book. I highly recommend it.

This is the fourth book in a series that features the continuing adventures of U.S. Fish and Wildlife agent Rachel Porter.

I love murder-mysteries and I am also very interested in wildlife, its preservation and the battle against illegal smuggling of wildlife, in general, parrots in particular. So when I saw this book and read the back cover I could not put it back on the shelf.

This is Porter's first foray into the world of parrot smuggling, as she deals with a different endangered species in each novel (having battled smugglers of monkeys, alligators and tortoises in previous books). She also moves from locale to locale in each book.

In this story, she operates out of Miami. While tracking down a tip about some illegally smuggled parrots, she stumbles across a dead smuggler whose birds have all disappeared.

Obviously, murder is not something fish and wildlife officers are paid to investigate, but against the orders of her boss, she proceeds to try to solve a case that grows more and more complex with the turn of each page. Soon she finds herself moving in circles that include Cuban cigar smugglers, gay pornographers and anti-Castro arms dealers.

I enjoyed the book for the most part, mainly because of the parrot theme. There were moments I cringed, thinking about the treatment (the book describes smugglers drugging birds with shots of tequila to sneak them in quietly) and fate of smuggled parrots (according to the book, there are more escaped exotic birds in south Florida than there are in the vanishing Amazon rainforest).

I found the solving and wrap-up of the case to be somewhat abrupt, as if the author was typing along then suddenly realized she was running out of space and time, and tried to tie everything up in a rush. There were a few loose ends that never did seem to be explained explicitly, and I felt a little disappointed that way.

As a parrot lover, I was also disappointed that the criminals were never really punished for parrot smuggling per se; they were prosecuted for other "higher" crimes. That's the way it is in life, though, so it is realistic that way. Because of that, the book works emotionally even though there may be a few weak spots in the story.

That realism paints a sad picture of humanity, with its egocentric approach to the world, an approach that views humans as the only "important" species on the planet. There are many people like the smugglers portrayed in the book, and as long as there is even one person like that left on the planet, humankind will be limited in its growth and ability to evolve to a higher level.

If you believe that all law enforcement agents are inept or corrupt or both, then perhaps you won't have difficulty suspending disbelief for this story. The protagonist in this series blunders around crime scenes, interferes with investigations and miraculously survives single handed faceoffs with murderers. Except for the first novel in this series, don't waste time on these books.

The start of the book starts out really exciting but then loses its pep. It's entertaining, but kind of drags out. I didn't feel like I really got to know or identify with Rachel Porter's character. The book was real dry on humor. There wern't any scenes or observations that were funny. This book was ok, but not my favorite.