Carnosaur Crimes (Ansel Phoenix) [Paperback]

Christine Gentry (Author)

Book Description

Series: Ansel Phoenix | Publication Date: July 10, 2008

When paleoartist Ansel Phoenix finds a burnt body hanging from the mouth of her life-sized Allosaurus replica outside the Big Toe Natural History Museum, she starts digging. An Indian poacher has been cutting out fossil carnosaur tracks along the Redwater River, and the Bureau of Land Management is threatening to close the museum and move the tracks to an educational institution. And the FBI is freezing out the local cops.Using her half-Blackfoot heritage as leverage, Ansel devises a dangerous scheme to help the FBI expose a statewide fossil-poaching ring. The sequel to Mesozoic Murder.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

At the start of Gentry's rambunctious second "dinosaur" mystery (after 2003's Mesozoic Murder), half-Blackfoot paleo-artist Ansel Phoenix rushes to the scene when the replica of an Allosaurus that she created to guard a natural history museum in Big Toe, Mont., is found with human remains in its massive jaws. Local police, the Bureau of Land Management and the FBI stumble into each other in a counterproductive tug-of-war for jurisdiction in the ensuing investigation. Phoenix gets involved when BLM bureaucrats threaten to use the incident as an excuse to close Big Toe's economically vital museum. Reid Dorbandt, a homicide detective, who happens to have saved Ansel's life in Mesozoic Murder, demands that she keep him apprised of the sting operation into which she's drafted to root out illegal fossil sales connected with the strange death. The cheekily appealing Ansel must summon extraordinary strength and native wisdom to battle greedy corruption, personal demons and the harsh environment of the badlands. Though several plot-thickening coincidences strain credulity, the snowballing pace will keep the reader turning the pages until the unexpected finish. (Apr. 11)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

From Booklist

Montana paleoartist Ansel Phoenix is almost finished with the dinosaur paintings for a new book she is illustrating when the attempted theft of some fossil dinosaur footprints, located outside a local museum, interrupts her work. Fearful the government will remove the footprints to a faraway university for study, thereby taking away the town's chief tourist attraction, and dismayed by the wholesale destruction caused by fossil poachers, Ansel agrees to take part in an FBI investigation to catch the poachers. What was supposed to be an afternoon's work, with little danger involved, blossoms into a deadly chase across the parched, desolate Badlands. Plot twists, fast pacing, and vivid descriptions distinguish this second in the series. Ansel is a complex, likable character with a fascinating profession who blends traditions from both her Caucasian and Native American backgrounds. Readers who enjoy the natural-world backdrop in Nevada Barr's novels will relish the setting here, and those who enjoy the geology plot will appreciate Sarah Andrews' Em Hansen mysteries. Sue O'Brien
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 324 pages
• Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press (July 10, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590583892
• ISBN-13: 978-1590583890
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,400,059 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars I am annoyed by characters like this, August 1, 2010

By 

andiesenji (SoCal,USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Carnosaur Crimes (Ansel Phoenix) (Kindle Edition)

It is not amusing and I don't admire people who think they know more than authorities and withhold materials and information that are germane to an investigation because they think they are smarter than the police or other authorities.

Perhaps it makes for a longer story but it simply annoys me. I bought two stories by this author. Read the first one all the way through thinking that it would get better but was disappointed in the end.

The second one (this title) I managed to get through half way and gave up because yet again the protagonist held back information that would have averted much of the damage to other people.
I won't buy another.

5.0 out of 5 stars fine amateur sleuth tale, April 12, 2005

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Carnosaur Crimes (Ansel Phoenix Mysteries) (Hardcover)

The stealing of fossils including dinosaur tracks is a lucrative business so there are as many poachers as paleontologists. Something went wrong for one poacher when an explosion killed him near the Big Toe Museum in Montana. DA panicked curator Dr. Cameron Dieselmore informs paleoartist Ansel Phoenix that her allosaurus replica killed someone as part of the victim resides as a burned husk dangling from the teeth of her model.

Ansel arrives at the crime scene only to find law enforcement arguing jurisdiction between the Big Toe police, LaCrosse County sheriff, the state, the FBI and the Bureau of Land and mines. Not long afterward, FBI Agent Outerbridge asks Ansel for help in capturing poachers who devastated a major find because she being half-Indian might provide access that he cannot achieve. Reluctantly she agrees because she fears the BLM will shut the Big Toe Museum that is on federal land and move the find to a California think tank. Ansel may have reconsidered her acquiescing if she knew that the allosaurus victim was murdered and that Police Chief Flynn has been killed too.

CARNOSAUR CRIMES, the sequel to the pleasant MESOZOIC MURDER, is a fine amateur sleuth tale with plenty of police procedural elements to make for a wonderful investigative tale. The story line hooks the audience from the moment that Dr. Dieselmore calls Ansel and never lets up until the final confrontation. Ansel is a terrific center keeping the plot moving while the deadly dinosaur hunting and the competition between the various law enforcement agencies makes the mystery realistic and much more entertaining.

Harriet Klausner