The Tourist Trail

Publisher's Summary

Biologist Angela Haynes is accustomed to dark, lonely nights as one of the few humans at a penguin research station in Patagonia. She has grown used to the cries of penguins before dawn, to meager supplies and housing, to spending most of her days in one of the most remote regions on earth. What she isn't used to is strange men washing ashore, which happens one day on her watch. 

The man won't tell her his name or where he came from, but Angela, who has a soft spot for strays, tends to him, if for no other reason than to protect her birds and her work. When she later learns why he goes by an alias, why he is a refugee from the law, and why he is a man without a port, she begins to fall in love - and embarks on a journey that takes her deep into Antarctic waters, and even deeper into the emotional territory she thought she'd left behind. 

Against the backdrop of the Southern Ocean, The Tourist Trail weaves together the stories of Angela as well as FBI agent Robert Porter, dispatched on a mission that unearths a past he would rather keep buried; and Ethan Downes, a computer tech whose love for a passionate activist draws him into a dangerous mission.

©2010 John Yunker (P)2019 John Yunker

Kept my interest in a unique setting

Begin this book knowing that none of the main characters is particularly sympathetic and that the author is not committed to linear story-telling. That said, it is an interesting story of those fighting to protect the non-human parts of our environment doing battle with almost everyone and everything, including nature itself and sometimes their own personal foibles. The author narrates the audiobook himself, and his delivery is hypnotically pleasing and works well, although there are several sections that need re-editing. I do not in any way regret the time given to this book, but I finished it still not completely sure what the author wanted me to take away from it. I received my copy of this audiobook as a gift from the author and am voluntarily leaving this review.