Bookworm: ‘Extinction’ – A soon-to-be true story?

“Extinction”

• By Douglas Preston
• c. 2024, Forge
• $29.99, 384 pages

Keep that shirt. It’ll eventually come back in fashion. So many things do: roller skating and yo-yos, for instance. Car features and furniture styles. Wide paisley ties, bell bottom jeans, vintage tees, and cat-glasses, those occasional darlings of fashionistas and there we go. So, keep that shirt, it’ll eventually come back – although, as in the new novel, “Extinction” by Douglas Preston, returns aren’t always a good thing.

When the phone rang before the sun was up, Frankie Cash was instantly awake.

Nothing good comes from a predawn phone call, but this one was good and bad. For the first time, Cash was tapped to be the Agent in Charge of a case for her employer, the Colorado Bureau of Investigations’ Major Crimes Division. The bad news: the son and daughter-in-law of a very wealthy man were missing.

They had been on their dream honeymoon, a guided hiking-camping trip in Colorado’s Erebus Mountains, at a private resort where woolly mammoths, giant sloths, and other Pleistocene herbivores had been de-extincted by scientists working in laboratories located inside abandoned mines. The animals had been genetically-modified to remove any aggressiveness. Cash could see that the creatures roamed around the mountains where guests could spot them from afar, like some kind of prehistoric photo-op.

The couple were fit and comfortable with the kind of activity needed to hike in high altitudes. Their guide insisted they were nice people. Now they were missing.

It didn’t make sense.

But Agent Cash noted blood on the ground, spread in a wide area – blood loss, as it turned out, that was inconsistent with life. Predators? No, Erebus assured the CBI that the compound was protected from modern predators, but drones indicated via thermal imaging that there were invaders in the mountains, and they were organized.

The CBI figured they were looking for six, maybe nine killers, and the killers were smart – smart enough to bring down a drone.

Smart enough that when Cash and another agent went to retrieve a busted drone, the killers stalked them ...

The science, says author Douglas Preston in his afterword, is real and he seems to hint that his story – at least some of it – could actually happen someday soon. You should take that maybe as cold comfort while you’re careening through “Extinction.”

For now, just know that you’re safe – as safe as you’re going to be with a thriller like this one in your lap, one you could treat it as a someday-potentially true crime tale that pushes the envelope of morality in ways you won’t expect. It’s majestic and horrifying, both, but to further muddle things, Preston also speaks to the heart of science fiction lovers here with (at the risk of being a spoiler) the slightest whiff of a classic Pierre Boulle novel.

Don’t cheat and look that up. Instead, look for this delicious, sometimes gory, don’t-try-to-solve-it-early novel that feels as real as the pounding heartbeats you’ll get from reading it. Take your time to enjoy “Extinction.” It’s a book you’ll gladly come back to.

“Dogland: Passion, Glory, and Lots of Slobber at the Westminster Dog Show”

• By Tommy Tomlinson
• c. 2024, Avid Reader Press
• $28.99, 231 pages

The big blue ribbon is almost the size of your head. It took serious yardage to make it, and the fancy circle in the middle couldn’t have been cheap, either. That’s not to mention the trophies, the loving cups and all the other accolades that came from a competition you couldn’t win, no matter how much you tried. No, those awards belong to the fuzziest member of the family, and in “Dogland” by Tommy Tomlinson, you’ll meet a superstar in a fur coat.

You can always tell when a pro athlete is happy. He smiles wide. She pumps her fists and low-fives with teammates. But Tommy Tomlinson thought of something else a few years ago while watching the Westminster Dog Show on television: “Are those dogs happy?”

Tomlinson likes dogs. He had a dog once himself, and he still thinks about Fred. But these show dogs, all fluffed up, trotting in circles – are they enjoying themselves? For that matter, do dogs love us or do they give us wags and wiggles just to get new squeaky toys?

Tomlinson had to know, and so he set out to spend time at dog shows – hundreds of them over the course of two years – and he met the handler of a superstar.

Laura King’s first thought every morning and last thought each night was for Striker, a medium-sized dazzling-white Samoyed who was destined for greatness. She fed him, gave him water, treats, pets, and became his everything.

In doing so, he became her everything, too.

How they got to that point is a story that goes back to 1876, when a few “white guys” in a bar named Westminster decided to form a kennel club for their hunting dogs. It escalated from that point and spread city to city and breed to breed as dogs and handlers became enmeshed in “the Fancy” to become bone-afide champions.

All this, even though we don’t speak their language and they don’t speak ours, but we definitely communicate. And that, says Tomlinson, is “nature’s greatest magic trick.”

No matter what your dog’s pedigree, he’s a winner in your house and you don’t mind talking about him, either. In “Dogland,” author Tommy Tomlinson will also tell you about Fred and Striker and Seaman and Charly and Lepshi and dozens of dogs whose names you should know, dogs that made a difference, and dogs that’ll make you cry.

Mostly, though, you’re going to laugh at the things Tomlinson dug up during his three years on the road and the show-dog intel he sniffed out. Readers who’ve wondered what show dogs act like in real life will enjoy his peeks, back-kennel, as he explains details about the show world and why handlers wear the outfits they do. Doggedly, Tomlinson also writes about the “Sammy smile,” dog history, dog lovers, famous dogs, mutts, mixed-breeds, and snuggle muffins.

Readers who share breakfast with a Basset, a mattress with a Maltese, or lunch with a Lab are absolutely going to want this book. For you, “Dogland” is blue-ribbon reading.

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The Bookworm is Terri Schlichenmeyer. She has been reading since she was 3 years old and never goes anywhere without a book. Terri lives on a hill in Wisconsin with two dogs and 11,000 books. Read past columns at marconews.com.