Storm Warning by Alice Henderson
Storm Warning is Alice Henderson’s fifth wild and wooly, storm-tossed, action-packed suspense novel featuring protagonist wildlife biologist and environmentalist adventurer Alex Carter. Her current assignment to study and protect imperiled hawksbill turtles in tropical Hawai’i seemed like an idyllic vacation of sun, surf, swimming and snorkeling. The intensive military survival training taught to her by her late combat pilot mother and her expertise in Jeet Kune Do (Bruce Lee’s mixed martial arts specialty) had been challenged to the breaking point during her last few jobs.
A Scientist Forged for Survival
Alex, recipient of an honors doctorate from UC-Berkeley, is a vegetarian, solitude-loving scientist more at home in remote wilderness than among towering skyscrapers of concrete and glass. Field studies involving tracking, tranquilizing and tagging a variety of carnivorous animals, including wolverines, polar bears and jaguars, have proven to be substantially less dangerous than the opportunistic, predatory human killers she has encountered.
The prologue begins in the Allakaket Gold Fields in Alaska, which were briefly part of the 1898-1899 Yukon Gold Rush and were abandoned until the advanced technology of bulldozers and excavators arrived to efficiently remove layers of the permafrost. Geologist and team leader Caleb Winshaw made an astonishing find of a perfectly preserved adult wooly mammoth that evidently perished in a landslide. Lacking the temperature-controlled means to preserve it, he had the large specimen transported to the new, state-of-the-art Museum of Vertebrate Paleontology on the Big Island of Hawai’i. The facility possessed the necessary equipment and a large refrigerated lab. It was directed by Dr. Nakoa Kahananui, whom he met when they were doctoral students at Harvard. A short time later, the team discovered a baby mammoth in a crevasse a short distance from its presumed mother. Before they could make arrangements to transport this tremendous find, a military-grade helicopter swooped down, the fossil was seized, and Caleb and his team were massacred. This was only the beginning.
After a lengthy vacation visiting her father, a fine arts landscape painter who resides in the Berkeley Foothills, and completing a study on the adaptation of coyotes in the Presidio in San Francisco, Alex Carter was ready for a new assignment. Her friend Ben Hathaway, regional director of the Land Trust for Wildlife Preservation, recommended her to the nonprofit Center for Sea Turtle Restoration. While their three resident scientists were away on other studies, Alex would monitor the hawksbill nests. This required someone willing to camp on the beach, check nests to prevent disturbances of the eggs and tag adult sea turtles with satellite trackers to study their migration patterns. She was on the next flight out with a rental car reserved and awaiting her arrival. It was short work to retrieve the cameras, temperature probes and other gear from the center along with food and personal supplies. Pitching her tent in a jiffy, Alex enjoyed a refreshing swim. Two hawksbills obligingly laid their eggs before retreating into the Pacific. By the following day, Alex had interviewed volunteers and toured the impressive Paleontology Museum, which contained many multi-million dollar specimens, including a complete T-Rex.
Storm Chaos and High Stakes Action
Warnings of a massive storm approaching were a concern. Anticipating the extreme tides flooding the nests, Alex safely loaded the turtle eggs prior to pandemonium erupting. Telephone and power lines went down as massive trees blocked roadways. A murderous crew seized museum director Nakoa and was in the process of loading the mammoth and other priceless fossils into a truck for transfer onto a hijacked trawler. Alex Carter is smack in the middle of this maelstrom as the violence and excitement increase.
Like Alice Henderson’s previous thrillers, Storm Warning is densely layered, nuanced and unpredictable with a shocking amount of violence and resultant high body count. Alex Carter again exhibits a cool head as she takes calculated risks to outwit and outmaneuver ruthless killers who pursue her across a molten-hot lava bed and through an abandoned WWII US military underground bunker. The author is a fierce protector of the environment and a highly trained field biologist who educates as well as entertains her devoted and expanding fan base. In this novel, she deftly includes information about imperiled sea turtles, illegal animal trade by poachers, habitat loss and light pollution that has contributed to the erosion of the species. The novel concludes with a practical section, “To Help and to Learn More about Sea Turtles,” and a listing of relevant books, documentaries and websites.
About Alice Henderson:
In addition to being a writer, Alice Henderson is a dedicated wildlife researcher, geographic information systems specialist, and bioacoustician. She documents wildlife on specialized recording equipment, checks remote cameras, creates maps and undertakes wildlife surveys to determine what species are present on preserves, while ensuring there are no signs of poaching. She’s surveyed for the presence of grizzlies, wolves, wolverines, jaguars, endangered bats and more.
