Case Files of the Tracker: True Stories from America's Greatest Outdoors [Paperback]

Tom Brown (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 2, 2003

For decades, Tom Brown, Jr.-the renowned wilderness expert and tracker trained by an Apache elder-has been called upon to find lost children, escaping criminals, wild animals-anything that can walk, crawl, or lope through the wilderness. Now, he talks about sixteen of his most incredible adventures for the first time-including the desperate race to reach a diabetic child before he goes into insulin shock, the treacherous struggle to capture an armed criminal which left Tom with a bullet in his back, and his pursuit of a tiger loose in the wilds of New Jersey.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Tom Brown, Jr. began to learn hunting and tracking at the age of eight under the tutelage of an Apache elder, medicine man, and scout in Toms River, New Jersey. Tom is the author of 16 books on nature. Recently, he was the technical advisor on The Hunted, a major motion picture starring Tommy Lee Jones and Benicio del Toro. In 1978, Tom founded the Tracker School in the New Jersey Pine Barrens where he offers classes about wilderness survival and environmental protection.

Tom Brown, Jr. is the author of over a dozen books on nature and tracking including Awakening Spirits, The Science and Art of Tracking, The Search, The Quest, and The Journey. He has been tracking since childhood.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Berkley Trade (December 2, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0425187551
• ISBN-13: 978-0425187555
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #455,960 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Tom Brown, Jr is America's most acclaimed outdoorsman, and a renowned tracker, teacher, and author. When Tom was only seven, Stalking Wolf (Grandfather), an Apache elder, shaman and scout, began coyote teaching Tom in the skills of tracking, wilderness survival, and awareness. After Stalking Wolf's final walk, Tom spent the next ten years wandering the wilderness throughout the America's with no manufactured tools--in most cases not even a knife--perfecting Grandfathers skills and teachings. Tom came back to "civilization" and began looking for people interested in all that he had learned, but found none. He felt lost and confused until a local sheriff who knew Tom called him in to track a lost person. Tom found the missing person and, in the process, found his Vision.
Over the next few years Tom earned his reputation as "The Tracker" by finding lost people, and fugitives. He has since worked with many law enforcement agencies, throughout the United States and internationally, on cases involving abducted children, lost hunters and hikers, and fugitives. He wrote about his experiences in a book titled The Tracker, which was published in 1978. Soon after, Reader's Digest ran a condensed version of Tom's story and included information on the Tracker School. That was over thirty years ago, and today Tom Brown Jr's Tracker School http://www.trackerschool.com is teaching people from all over the world and from all walks of life. Since the success of The Tracker, Tom has authored 16 books on tracking, awareness, nature observation and survival, including, Grandfather, The Vision, The Way of the Scout and a series of field guides, which have sold well over a million copies.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not as bad as the other reviews say..., December 24, 2004

By 

Mark "Bottom line only please..." (Raleigh, NC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Case Files of the Tracker: True Stories from America's Greatest Outdoors (Paperback)

First full disclosure...this was the first book I've read by Tom Brown, after the title caught my eye in the bookstore. Also, after initially starting it, I did the standard Internet search to find out who he was and what he was about.
The book is a quick easy read and the subject is fascinating. I give it only 4 instead of 5 stars, because the writing is somewhat stilted. I don't fault him some of the redundancy, because I think he is intentionally trying to hammer some key points in his philosophy.

I think Tom Brown is approaching twilight time in his life, and no doubt he recognizes that. I think he is trying to make peace with some events in his past life. Not to ruin the book, but every story does not end with him carrying out a lost child on his shoulders to the adulation of the town or with him leading out an escaped fugitive in chains.

This book does not smack of "smug arrogance and bravado" that some of the other reviewers would lead you to believe...just the opposite, Tom Brown gives full disclosure concerning some of his mistakes and regrets from the various cases described in the book, he always gives full credit to his tracker students, and he approaches everything in the book: the wilderness, the unfortunate circumstances of other people, with respect and reverence.

I also find it ridiculous that some of the other reviewers criticized the fact that this book "wouldn't teach them how to track." Read the other books he's written, or attend his tracking school up north. If he took time in the book to describe "how he does it" it would probably take several pages and destroy the continuity of the story.
I can't see how anyone with a pulse would not enjoy this book. Enjoyable read. I see myself reading more of his books.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, December 30, 2003

By 

Shadow Raven "shadowraven" (Orange, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Case Files of the Tracker: True Stories from America's Greatest Outdoors (Paperback)

First off, I am a huge fan of Tom Brown and have the utmost respect for him. I have been reading and re-reading all his books for the past 17 years. And I will continue to do so.

But I found myself asking "Did Tom really write this?". The stories themselves are very interesting. But I felt like I was reading each story 3 times do to the redundancy. But what got to me most was the arrogance that this book seems to be wrapped in. I fully appreciate Toms skills and the emotional pains he has had to go through. But there are doctors, firemen, social workers and countless others that have to endure the emotional trauma of watching people suffer through life and die right before them day after day at their jobs. Yet they are not out pounding that fact home in books in this 'oh woe is me' fashion.

If you have not read a Tom Brown book before don't start with this one. Toms books, skills and teachings are a tremendous value. But starting with this book will turn you away from all he has to offer.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Tracker shares his secrets, December 6, 2003

By 

Klaus (Vienna, Austria) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Case Files of the Tracker: True Stories from America's Greatest Outdoors (Paperback)

Tom Brown's new book was long awaited, finally it is here. His fans might have hoped to see it published already when the movie 'the hunted' (whose technical advisor Tom Brown was and which is even based on a story in this book) hit the cinemas, but due to reasons only the publisher know it arrived half a year later. For the reading audience this does not make any difference at all. The 'case files' which Brown presents in this book do not need a film as a support, they will come alive on their own and - compared to the rather dull movie - the material conveyed in the book is 100% true Tom Brown stuff. People who know Tom Brown will be surprised how deep he goes this time: He is not only sharing his great abilities as a tracker, but also all the intense personal and intimate emotions he experiences being on a tracking case. And a big tracking adventure - in Brown`s perspective - is the whole life, because as a tracker tracking never stops. And it's not a mystic knowledge limited to few chosen ones but an art and science open to anybody who is willing to show passion and invest long hours of 'dirt time' - just as Master Tracker Tom Brown did over decades.
All of his stories are exciting to read (some like 'My Frankenstein' are a little bit too macho-style in my opinion), most have a sad ending in common but at the same time they are very rich when it comes to universal messages beyond the physical evidence. Tracking as the art of seeing, feeling and knowing.
So it is a great book to read which talks to us at the same time on different and very subtle levels.