Montana paleoartist Ansel Phoenix, stunned by the incinerated body of the Indian blasted up into the mouth of her life-sized Allosaurus replica standing outside the Big Toe Natural History Museum, starts digging. Poachers have been cutting out fossil Carnosaur tracks along the Red Water River—an Indian poacher—and the Bureau of Land Management is threatening to close the museum and move the tracks inside an educational institution. And the FBI investigation of the man’s fatal accident, triggered by the explosion of a faulty valve on his propane-powered concrete saw, is freezing out the local cops.
Who is the dead poacher? Clues point to a rodeo heritage. But a final answer will have to come from taking his head up to Billings for an attempt at facial reconstruction.
Using her half-Blackfoot heritage as leverage, rancher’s daughter Ansel devises a dangerous scheme to help the Feds—is it the FBI? Or is it the BLM? Or some other agency?—expose a statewide ring of dinosaur thieves. But she didn’t count on complications with commercial dealers in fossils; it’s a big money market. Or starting a new romance, or the continuation of her “partnership” with local law officer Reid Dorbandt. Or being stalked by a deadly nemesis from her childhood.
