Prey [Hardcover]

Kenneth W. Goddard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1992

Harry Lightstone, the leader of a crew of forest cops on the prowl for illegal hunters, takes on an international junta of financiers, industrialists, and paid assassins. 75,000 first printing. $50,000 ad/promo.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The prose gallops like a runaway moose through Goddard's ( Balefire ) environmental adventure yarn as an international cabal of Very Big Businesses sends a mega-lethal hit squad, code name ICER, to destroy the pro-green activist groups whose demands are jeopardizing their profits. A covert team of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recruits rogue undercover cop Henry Lightstone to flush out the Chareaux brothers, two cold-blooded Cajuns who are running wild game hunts in national parks. Lightstone's smooth sting operation hits a speed bump when two ICER directors horn in on his private hunt. After making the bust, the Wildlife team watches as ICER uses its Interior Department clout to get the charges dropped. Dismantled and scattered across the country, Lightstone's team is targeted by an ICER terminator squad. Henry fakes out the FBI and reunites the surviving team members to cross paths with the Chareauxs. They escape with enough forensic evidence to lead them to ICER headquarters and to finger Washington bigwigs on the take. A convincing thriller starring a little-known Federal law enforcement group, with a terrific green backlash scenario.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

Rogue bureaucrats, international terrorists, Cajun outlaws, and the odd carnivore gang up on a heavily outnumbered undercover team from the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Only the fish are neutral in Goddard's (The Alchemist, Balefire) bloody, entertaining, eco-thriller. Well, why not? There probably are two-fisted Fish and Wildlife employees who don't talk in that ultrasoothing PBS drone. What is perhaps harder to swallow is Goddard's suggestion that there might be high-level Cabinet officials with the nerve and imagination to buy into Operation Counter Wrench--a vicious, well-funded, semiprivate effort to ruin the world green movement with a series of spectacular terrorist acts to be blamed on overzealous eco- weenies. Fortunately for the balance of nature, former San Diego cop Henry Lightstone has been recruited to the Department of the Interior's supersecret task force of undercover wildlife rangers. Disguised as a free-spending hunter with Teddy Rooseveltian appetites, Lightstone hires the vicious, criminal, forbidden-game- hunting Chareaux brothers of Louisiana to help him bag bears in Yellowstone National Park and then stumbles into Operation Wrench, where he finds himself battling grizzlies cheek by jowl with an undersecretary and a beautiful Brooklyn politician who's only truly satisfied when her life is threatened with immense natural danger. The creatures from inside the Beltway quickly show themselves to be ten times more dangerous than the wildlife. Goddard, director of The National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory, packs in enough authentic fin-and-critter detail to pull off his extraordinarily far-fetched and relentlessly violent plot. Not for the fainthearted. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 335 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; 1st edition (September 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 031285112X
• ISBN-13: 978-0312851125
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,103,436 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A pretty good action/adventure romp!, July 1, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Prey (Mass Market Paperback)

I have never read any of Ken Goddard's books and PREY was my first (and won't be my last) novel that I have read and liked. It was never boring and has lots of interesting characters, good and bad. The only thing I didn't like about it was the main character Lightstone, only because he has such an american indian name but no background or reference of his heritage was revealed, so I didn't really get to know the character very much except he likes sports and obviously knows something about weapons and martial arts. The weapons part I can understand since he is a cop after all, but again no explanation on how he knows all those karate moves! But I usually don't read this kind of book but I love action/adventure series, and this gave me that! So I suppose it piqued my interest to read the next installment. But according to the reviews the next two are weak, but I will give my own opinion. The author deserves it in my opinion.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fast and thrilling, February 2, 2003

By 

Karalee A Woody (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Prey (Mass Market Paperback)

This was the first of Ken Goddard's books I read, and continues to be my favorite. He has a unique writing style that is descriptive (for those of us that don't know weapons well) while not being overdone. The story is far-fetched but who cares! Goddard takes the reader on a whirlwind of suspence and crime. I couldn't put the book down and once I finished I had to find another story about that rogue cop turned wildlife agent, Henry Lightstone.

4.0 out of 5 stars Not bad; not bad at all., March 14, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Prey (Mass Market Paperback)

Non-stop action from beginning to end. However, a lot of the action is related through dialogue and this has a tendency to slow the pace of the story. The author is one of the few to introduce a woman as a villain and I would really have liked to have seen her character fleshed out some more. It would have been interesting to have had herself and Lightner in a situation where they were pursued by both the good guys and the bad guys. Apart from that, this was an altogether enjoyable read.