Cry Last Heard

I have read both Cry Last Heard and Leave No Trace and have been stunned at the power in this author's style. I wait now desparate for another book. What a wonderful storyteller!

Just like her last novel, Leave No Trace, Hannah Nyala ratchets up the tension and manages to keep it there pretty much throughout the entire book. Her scenes of outdoor survival are unequalled. After Leave No Trace, I thought that no novel could ever again capture such an absolute edge-of-life survival situation or the grit necessary to survive it, but Cry Last Heard pulls it off; Nyala's two for two. SAR tracker Tally Nowata has issues that have nothing to do with what's about to happen to her. While she goes through the fight of her life, she has to deal with those issues as well and you want to say, Jeez Nyala, give the gal a break, would ya. So, if a reader gets this invested in a character it means that the author has done a pretty good job of defining the character and bringing the character to life. Nyala has done that. As I read Cry Last Heard, I was already thinking about how Nyala might take her characters into another book, hoping that it comes soon. Like Leave No Trace, Cry Last Heard is a well-written, powerful story.

It has been two years since Tally Nowata returned from Australia to the Grand Tetons in Wyoming with a baby, but without her beloved Paul who died in the desert at the hands of Earl J. Foy. Tally works as an expert search and tracker ranger. In a blinding storm, Tally and her partner Laney "Lanes" Greer goes to rescue a climber, but when they reach their objective no one is there. They continue to search the mountain, but someone hunts them. Lanes is wounded and unconscious so an injured Tally rushes to get them help. New rangers arrive, but Lanes is missing, but they do find the body of Lanes ex boyfriend who Tally detests. The Sheriff believes Tally killed this victim and Lanes. Tally knows otherwise and plans to prove so once she finds her missing partner only to find her enemy has someone else ever dearer to her to hold as hostage to her behavior. The heroine is a courageous person who acts like a mountain lioness protecting her cubs as she goes single-handedly to rescue her child. The beauty of this National Park is so visibly described that the audience will feel they are climbing the peaks. Though an action thriller, CRY LAST HEARD enables the audience to get inside the minds of several key players including the star so that readers learn motives and see what is going on through each main character. Hannah Nyala's latest thriller is keep shelf material to be reread for the pleasure of a fine tale.