When the Killing's Done.

The Channel Islands off the coast of California provide the backdrop for PEN/Faulkner Award-winning author Boyle's 13th novel, following The Women (2009), also available from Blackstone Audio. The book begins with a shipwreck that tests the mental and physical strength of one of the novel's tough female characters and then moves back and forth in history, telling the story of a family and the irrevocable ways its members both affect nature and are affected by it. Awash in recurring images of violence and death, the narrative is arranged as separate stories that swirl around the family like the waters around the islands, offering up a tangled net of conflict among incompatible interests: ecological well-being, animal rights, and the human impulse toward intervention. Actor/narrator Anthony Heald's (anthonyheald.com) mellow voice helps to weave the story into a cohesive, gripping drama and provides a welcome respite from the sometimes exhausting action of the plot. Recommended. ["Whether we regard this work as environmental fiction or a philosophical treatise on land ethics, Boyle has delivered yet another quandary to ponder," read the review of the Viking hc, LJ 1/11.—Ed.]—Beth Traylor, Univ. of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libs.