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  • When the Killing's Done

  • A Novel
  • Written by: T. C. Boyle
  • Narrated by: Anthony Heald
  • Length: 16 hrs and 11 mins
  • 4.0 out of 5 stars (1 rating)

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When the Killing's Done

Written by: T. C. Boyle
Narrated by: Anthony Heald
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Publisher's Summary

From the best-selling author of The Women comes an action-packed adventure about endangered animals and those who would protect them.

Principally set on the wild and sparsely inhabited Channel Islands off the coast of Santa Barbara, T. C. Boyle’s powerful new novel combines pulse-pounding adventure with a socially conscious, richly humane tale regarding the dominion we attempt to exert, for better or worse, over the natural world.

Alma Boyd Takesue is a National Park Service biologist who is spearheading the efforts to save the islands’ endangered native creatures from invasive species like rats and feral pigs, which, in her view, must be eliminated. Her antagonist, Dave LaJoy, is a dreadlocked local businessman who, along with his lover, the folksinger Anise Reed, is fiercely opposed to the killing of any species whatsoever and will go to any lengths to subvert the plans of Alma and her colleagues.

Their confrontation plays out in a series of escalating scenes in which these characters violently confront one another, contemplate acts of sabotage, court danger, and tempt the awesome destructive power of nature itself. Boyle deepens his story by going back in time to relate the harrowing tale of Alma’s grandmother, Beverly, who was the sole survivor of a 1946 shipwreck in the channel, as well as the tragic story of Anise’s mother, Rita, who in the late 1970s lived and worked on a sheep ranch on Santa Cruz Island.

In dramatizing this collision between protectors of the environment and animal rights activists, Boyle is, in his characteristic fashion, examining one of the essential questions of our time: Who has the right of possession of the land, the waters, the very lives of all the creatures who share this planet with us?

©2011 T. Coraghessan Boyle (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

What the critics say

“[Boyle’s] sleek prose yields a tale that is complex, thought-provoking, and darkly funny—everything we have come to expect from him.” ( Publishers Weekly)
“Boyle’s great subject is humankind’s blundering relationship with the rest of the living world…Incisive and caustically witty, Boyle is fluent in evolutionary biology and island biogeography, cognizant of the shared emotions of all sentient beings, in awe over nature’s crushing power, and, by turns, bemused and appalled by human perversity. Boyle brings all these powers and concerns to bear as he creates magnetic characters and high suspense, culminating in a piercing vision of our needy, confused, and destructive species thrashing about in the great web of life.” ( Booklist, Starred Review)
“Alma wears the white hat, LaJoy the black, but Boyle lets neither off the hook, showing how nature will always bite back and turn even the best human endeavor to water and dust. ... Boyle makes us laugh and wonder at his dazzling gifts but his comedy is a dark business." ( Los Angeles Times)

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