Things aren't going too well for wolf biologist Helen Ross. At 29, she's unemployed (recently retired dishwasher), single (boyfriend of two years left her for Africa), and has just learned that her father is marrying someone younger, richer, and prettier than herself (completely accurate). Back in her lonely log cabin in Cape Cod, frantically chain-smoking, she receives a message from her former lover Dan Prior. Prior, also a biologist, works for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service wolf-recovery program. In return for helping him track the lupine posse, Prior will provide her with a cabin, truck, and a snowmobile for good measure in a rustic little town called Hope, just outside of Helena, Montana. Apparently, Ross has never heard the proverb "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is," and happily skips off to Big Sky Country.

Within moments of her arrival, she finds out what she's up against: a small town with a long history of wolf fear and loathing, no resources (big surprise), and a powerful rancher who will do whatever it takes to eliminate the wolves. The rancher, testosterone-saturated Buck Calder, has got the community riled up after a wolf stalked his daughter's home and killed the family dog. He won't stop until every last endangered wolf is dead, which proves problematic for Ross when she decides to romance his 18-year-old son, Luke. Cynics be warned: their love affair spawns a trove of gooey pillow talk and syrupy prose. Even so, Evans has made impressive strides as a writer since his debut novel, The Horse Whisperer, and his storytelling has reached a noticeably new level of sophistication: the plot is tight, the characterization is realistic, and the dialogue is crisp. --Rebekah Warren


Amazon.com Audio Review
In this unabridged audio version of The Loop by Nicholas Evans (The Horse Whisperer), actor-narrator John Bedford Lloyd (Philadelphia) delivers a calm, almost casual read. It's a wise choice, not just because of the version's 14-plus hour length, but for the subtle way he allows the deeply textured story to unfold on its own, revealing a complex weave of compelling plot lines that form a circle of love, hate, trust, and suspicion.

Using the controversial reintroduction of wolves into the American West as its catalyst, Evans pits a powerful Montana rancher against a struggling wolf pack, the wildlife agents mandated to protect the animals and, ultimately, recalcitrant members of his own family. "Luke could taste blood starting, salty and metallic, inside his mouth. He stared at his father, who stood glaring at him, his massive chest heaving and his neck flushed with anger."

Evans has loaded his characters with deep secrets and hidden agendas, creating a potent mix that teeters perilously close to the edge of believability. But his technique is solid enough to keep the story grounded. Lloyd's understated delivery, which stands alone with no music cues or sound effects, lets the action move forward without slipping into the realm of melodrama. (Running time: 14.5 hours, 10 cassettes) --George Laney


Amazon.com Author Profile
Read about the author.


From Publishers Weekly
Fans of Evans's bestselling debut, The Horse Whisperer, may find that this issue-oriented follow-up is a case of deja vu. Montana is again the setting, animals are crucial to the plot and a love story between dissimilar people is the heart-tugger. The bitter debate over the reintroduction of wolves into the American West provides the hook. After the book opens with the killing of a family dog by a stray wolf, the battle lines are quickly and clearly drawn. The wolf-hating cowboys are led by quintessential alpha male Buck Calder, the region's biggest rancher, bully and philanderer. Primary opposition comes from wolf biologist Helen Ross, a despised Easterner hired to keep the wolves safe from ranchers and more selective about their predation. She eventually teams up?professionally and romantically?with Calder's stuttering, insecure son Luke, much to his father's disgust. This underplayed romance is nicely done, as is the burgeoning revolt within the Calder household by Luke and Eleanor, Buck's surprisingly self-possessed wife. But Evans once again shows himself capable of graceless writing. As if preparing for the inevitable casting call, detailed character studies occupy large portions of the initial 100 pages, preempting later, subtler disclosures. His passages on wolf behavior read like mediocre nature film scripts. The novel is more a work of ideology than imagination. Among its overt messages: man is out of sync with nature; the New West is full of lonely, emotionally scarred people licking their wounds; and wolves make better alpha males than humans do. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club main selection; author tour. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
When recently jilted wildlife biologist Helen Ross accepts a job with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service monitoring wolves who have been reintroduced into the Montana wilderness, rich rancher Buck Calder quickly emerges as her most vocal opponent. Calder's sensitive son Luke secretly admires the wolves and soon comes to admire Helen as well, finding himself caught in the middle when Buck arranges to have the wolves killed. Restoring wolves may seem a complex issue to many of us?balancing the esthetic and ecological value of freeing magnificent, if predatory, animals with the very real economic concerns of ranchers. But to Evans (The Horse Whisperer, Audio Reviews, LJ 4/1/96), the issue appears much simpler. His wildlife lovers are sensitive, clever, good-looking idealists, while the ranchers, especially Buck, are greedy, mean, philandering bullies. If Evans doesn't play quite fair with his characters, his evocations of the wilderness and the wolves soar, and his love story will appeal to many. Reader Stephen Lang performs more than adequately, though the electronic music occasionally becomes intrusive. Expect much demand.?John Hiett, Iowa City P.L.Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review, Erik Burns
His true gifts are demonstrated in his colorful, captivating depictions of the land.


The Wall Street Journal, Elizabeth Bukowski
It's an entertaining story, and Mr. Evans does a good job of describing the kind of controversy over wildlife that has torn apart many Western communities. It is a shame, however, that the ranchers (all of them "bad guys") are simplistically and unsympathetically portrayed as knuckle-draggers in Stetsons.


The Washington Post Book World, Craig Nova
The best way to describe the writing in The Loop is to say it is Prozac Prose, the practice of which is a saccharine exercise, distinguished by the belief that the human condition can be relieved by a little sensitivity, some earnest conversations about old wounds, and the introduction of wolves into what was once their natural range.


From AudioFile
In contrast with the adjacent review of the unabridged version of The Loop, the abridgment is a pale comparison. Underlying there's the same enticing story, but even the solid narration by Stephen Lang cannot make up for a chaotic abridgment and some questionable production choices. Short vignettes from the point of view of wolf, wife and mountain man are fleetingly presented. Scenes are cut off before the listener, who doesn't have any cinematographic help, can adjust to any narrative flow. An added insult are scene changes preceeded by music--some of which would be good for elevators. Don't waste your time here, but enjoy the story in the a form that does it justice. R.F.W. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
The secret to Evans' success is that there's something for everyone in his smooth-gliding novels. His first, The Horse Whisperer (1995), has pleased readers and moviegoers alike with its Big Sky country setting, mythic links between human beings and horses, and electric love story. Evans continues to mine this fertile terrain with skill and ardor in his second novel, this time spotlighting another American icon, the wolf. Our fascination with wolves is a profound one, and Evans makes good use of it, constructing dramatic confrontations between a pack of wolves, a small ranching community called Hope, Montana, and a federal biologist. Buck Clayton, a direct descendant of the so-called wolfers of a hundred years ago who massacred wolves by the thousands, is a wealthy and arrogant rancher and philanderer and Hope's most vocal advocate for wolf annihilation after a wolf kills a dog in sight of his baby grandson. To combat Clayton's threat of violence, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service calls in a top wolf biologist, Helen Moss, a wry young woman struggling with a broken heart. As she and Buck square off, Buck's misfit son, Luke, a handsome boy with a stutter who is already in love with the wolves, falls hard for Helen, adding fuel to the fire. Evans, bless him, has a thing for strong and tender women characters, a knack for clever dialogue, and a gift for wedding romance with suspense. And he's even handy with metaphors. The "loop" of the title refers to both a diabolical snare for killing wolf cubs and the grand circular scheme of things, as in "the living and the dead were joined in a loop as ancient and immutable as the moon that arced above them." A fine and thoughtful popular novel. Donna Seaman


From Kirkus Reviews
A drier version of Jaws, from the bestselling British novelist (The Horse Whisperer, 1995) whose distinctions so far are of scale rather than content. Hope, Montana, is not exactly the crossroads of a million lives. Barely more than a crossroads itself, its a quiet ranching community whose inhabitants are mostly descendants of the original white settlers who moved in a hundred years ago. But a frightening rash of brutal wolf attacksagainst both cattle and peoplemakes Hope the center of more attention than it had ever looked for. Dan Prior, the local rep of the US Wildlife Service, is an Eastern transplant whose long struggle to gain acceptance from the locals is threatened by his role as the enforcer of hated government conservation laws, and his life is suddenly made all the more difficult when the cattlemen (like ranchers Buck Calder and Abe Harding) take it upon themselves to kill the wolves in defiance of the Endangered Species Act. When the hunters are arrested and tried, a media riot puts Hope on the map and brings in its wake environmental crackpots as well as bona fide experts like biologist Helen Ross. Helen is opposed to killing the wolves, but her position is compromised by the adulation of Buck Calder's teenaged son Luke, who falls in love with her. Luke's troubled family is haunted by the death of his brother Henry some years earlier; his mother Eleanor responded to the death, and to her husband's repeated infidelities, by losing her Catholic faith and retreating into depression and despair. Meantime, Helen really just wants to get to the bottom of the wolf slayings, while Buck is looking for trouble and Dan just wants to keep the townsfolk from blowing their lids altogether. Ah, how will it all end? The same sort of sentimental pastiche, written in the same New Age Harlequin prose, that made The Horse Whisperer one of the most inexplicable success stories of the 1990s. (First printing of 650,000; Literary Guild main selection; author tour) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
"Gripping, big drama in Big Sky country...The Loop ropes a reader in."
--People

"Colorful, captivating . . . a novel of big themes: freedom, self-reliance, conservation, sheer survival."
--The New York Times Book Review

"Readers who loved The Horse Whisperer will most certainly love The Loop."
--The Orlando Sentinel


Review
"Gripping, big drama in Big Sky country...The Loop ropes a reader in."
--People

"Colorful, captivating . . . a novel of big themes: freedom, self-reliance, conservation, sheer survival."
--The New York Times Book Review

"Readers who loved The Horse Whisperer will most certainly love The Loop."
--The Orlando Sentinel

FROM THE PUBLISHER

A pack of wolves makes a sudden savage return to the Rocky Mountain ranching town of Hope, Montana, where a century earlier they were slaughtered by the thousands. Now shielded by law as an endangered species, they reawaken an ancient hatred that will tear a family, and ultimately the town, apart. At the center of the storm is Helen Ross, a twenty-nine-year-old wolf biologist sent alone into this remote and hostile place to protect the wolves from those who seek to destroy them. The Loop charts her struggle, and her dangerous love affair with the son of her most powerful opponent, the brutal and charismatic rancher Buck Calder.

FROM THE CRITICS

Cynthia Sanz

Gripping, big drama in Big Sky country. -- People Magazine

USA Today

Spotlights the majesty, mystery, and conflicts marking America's frontier country.

Publishers Weekly

Fans of Evans' bestselling novel The Horse Whisperer may find that this issue-oriented follow-up is a case of deja vu. Montana is again the setting; animals are crucial to the plot and a love story between dissimilar people is the heart-tugger. The bitter debate over the reintroduction of wolves into the American West provides the hook. After the book opens with the killing of a family dog by a stray wolf, the battle lines are quickly and clearly drawn. The wolf-hating cowboys are led by quintessential alpha male Buck Calder, the region's biggest rancher, bully and philanderer. Primary opposition comes from wolf biologist Helen Ross, an Easterner hired to keep the wolves safe from ranchers and more selective about their predation. She eventually teams up -- professionally and romantically -- with Calder's stuttering, insecure son Luke, much to his father's disgust. This underplayed romance is nicely done, as is the burgeoning revolt within the Calder household by Luke and Eleanor, Buck's surprisingly self-possessed wife.

But Evans once again shows himself capable of graceless writing. As if preparing for the inevitable casting call, detailed character studies occupy large portions of the initial 100 pages, pre-empting later, subtler disclosures. His passages on wolf behavior read like mediocre nature film scripts. The novel is more a work of ideology than imagination. Among its overt messages: man is out of sync with nature; the New West is full of lonely, emotionally scarred people licking their wounds; and wolves make better alpha males than humans do.

Library Journal

In his second novel, Evans returns to Montana, the scene of his best-selling The Horse Whisperer), with a tale of conflict and love. The government's decision to introduce Canadian wolves back into the western United States disgusts powerful rancher Buck Calder, but his anger knows no bounds when a wolf wanders onto his daughter's farm and kills the family's dog. This incident, plus a series of cattle killings that Calder attributes to roving bands of wolves, leads him and his fellow ranchers to bring in a wolf killer -- a man who uses the loop (a particularly inhumane method of eradicating the wolf population). Meanwhile, the government sends Helen, a beautiful young biologist, to Montana to monitor the wolves. She comes into direct conflict with Calder but wins the admiration and love of his son, Luke. This overwritten novel is about 150 pages too long. Do we really need to know that Helen's mother has a dynamite sex life with her second husband, or that her father is marrying a woman younger than Helen? For all that, this is a good story that will not disappoint Evans's many fans. Recommended for popular fiction collections everywhere. -- Nancy Pearl, Washington Center for the Book, Seattle

Alexandra Jacobs