4/4/2005 - Wounded Moon - Outdoors - Chattanoogan.com

"Shaw is also a friend of the Melungeons, a mysterious clan of people that live in the Appalachians who normally shun anyone outside the clan.

'Where does he live?'

'Newman's Ridge. See if you can find him?' And Smitty started the truck and was gone, leaving Micah to stand there studying hands and intentions and game wardens that were unlike any law enforcement she had ever dealt with in the past.'

Add in Micah Rogers, a woman on assignment for National Geographic, who prefers earth and sky to diamonds and jewels, and you have the necessary ingredients for a book you won't put down.

'He felt a tooth crunch into his skull and another just below his eyebrow. Unable to hear his own screams, a mysterious calm seemed to come over him...'

One reviewer writes, 'Wounded Moon pits man against his most intimate fears - those most assuredly real, and those buried deep in the soul.'

It is not a long read. Some describe it as a 'novelette.' Cook says he doesn't believe a good book should take any longer to read than watching a long movie. I read Wounded Moon in one afternoon while trolling for crappie on Chickamauga Lake. I considered it a grave intrusion when a crappie would rudely interrupt my reading.

'That was when it came, loping like some furred demon, its form moving through the trees... Adam moved away from them toward the great bear.'

Wounded Moon weaves together a patchwork of poachers, scientists, federal agents, local sheriffs, campers, hikers and all lovers of the outdoors. It is complete fiction, however for those who know him, it is hard to know where Gary Cook stops and Adam Shaw begins.

'I was one of those wildlife officers who considered him a brother.'

Cook however is"


Wounded Moon