The Tiger
Books | Nature / Animals / Big Cats
4.2
(104)
John Vaillant
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A gripping story of man pitted against nature’s most fearsome and efficient predator. This "travelogue about tiger poaching in Russia’s far east opens up a new genre ... [the] conservation thriller" (Nature).Outside a remote village in Russia’s Far East a man-eating tiger is on the prowl. The tiger isn’t just killing people, it’s murdering them, almost as if it has a vendetta. A team of trackers is dispatched to hunt down the tiger before it strikes again. They know the creature is cunning, injured, and starving, making it even more dangerous. As John Vaillant re-creates these extraordinary events, he gives us an unforgettable and masterful work of narrative nonfiction that combines a riveting portrait of a stark and mysterious region of the world and its people, with the natural history of nature’s most deadly predator.
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More Details:
Author
John Vaillant
Pages
352
Publisher
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published Date
2010-08-24
ISBN
0307593797 9780307593795
Ratings
Google: 5
Community ReviewsSee all
"Review cross-posted from <a href="https://books.max-nova.com/the-tiger/">https://books.max-nova.com/the-tiger/</a><br/><br/>The cover of "The Tiger" had me anticipating a bloodthirsty, high-voltage romp through remote villages in the jungle. What Vaillant delivers is a slow-burn thriller that deftly weaves in the landscape, history, and character of the Russian Far East. We follow Yuri Trush, the leader of Inspection Tiger, as he tracks a man-eating Amur tiger near a tiny outpost in Siberia in 1997. While Yuri earns our respect and the villagers win our sympathy, the real star is the tiger. Vaillant lovingly describes the physical strength and near-mystical power that the Amur tiger posesses and details the ecology of the "boreal rainforest" it calls home. As Yuri's tiger adds to the body count, Vaillant explores the significance that the tiger has for Eastern culture and discusses the pressures that China's explosive growth and demand for traditional tiger-based "medicines" has put on the dwindling population of Amur tigers. Vaillant maintains a skillful balance of facts, character portraits, and action - keeping a steady pace throughout the story. After the adrenaline-pumping finale, I promptly added several more of his books to my GoodReads list."
Max Nova
"I’ve already reread this amazing book two years ago, and I look forward to rereading it again soon."
Patrick Henry Aldrich