Novelist and nature writer Peterson (Duck and Cover
; Nature and Our Mothers
) crafts an uneven and melodramatic but gripping tale about love, xenotransplantation (transplanting organs and tissue across species) and the military-industrial complex's flagrant disregard for environmental responsibility. Two forensic wildlife pathologists—Isabel Spinner (a restless, dedicated animal lover and second-generation Scot) and Marian Windhorse Gray (a beautiful, flirty Oskeena Native American)—join Isabel's underwater photographer brother, Andrew, and his associate, obsidian-eyed Marshall McGreggor, for a dive to photograph an undersea volcano off the Oregon coast, when Marshall suffers a massive coronary. Lacking a healthy human heart, doctors implant the heart of a baboon, forcing Marshall to come to terms with his status as xenotransplantation guinea pig as well as his sudden and disturbing dreams of being a baboon on a savanna. He makes a miraculous recovery and becomes friends with spunky Irene Feinstein, a young woman with a pig valve in her heart, but is increasingly troubled by dreams of Hara, a female baboon in distress. Meanwhile, a disastrous beaching of whales and dolphins on the Oregon coast leads to the discovery that underwater U.S. military experiments with mid-to-low-frequency active sonar may be destroying the inner ears of the sea mammals. Is this just sonar—or the prototype for some new and terrible weapon? When Irene tells Marshall that Hara is being held in a Portland animal testing lab, they, aided by Andrew and a bunch of activists, orchestrate a daring rescue before they head back to the coast to try to stop the sonar experiments. Clunky exposition and credibility-straining twists mar the book, but Peterson's passion shines through. (Mar.)
