The tiger is ex-private eye Nohar Rajasthan, and he's only part tiger and part part man, a rare natural descendent of moreaus - animal-human chimeras designed for war. It's been 17 years since the events of Forests of the Night, seven years since Nohar left his human wife Stephanie. He lives on a homestead in California, part of a government program designed, in the wake of massive moreau-human violence, to get moreaus away from urban areas. He lives a simple life of hunting deer. His joints aching in the morning, his stripes faded, he knows he won't live long.

But, after he turns down a generous offer from an anonymous client to find a missing moreau and a hit team descends on his cabin, he has no choice but to return to Los Angeles and confront his past and the world he left.

In some ways, this is not only the shortest but most contemplative of Swann's moreau books. While it still has plenty of action, it also has Nohar confronting not only the fearful symmetries of his created purpose but also memories of his early life and the similarities between his own, distant father and the murderous forces he must combat.

While Swann again adds another chapter in the troubled relations between human and moreau and even shows us the first moreaus to be created, this is not a good entry point in the series. It depends too much on resonances from early books. But, after finishing those early books, it is definitely worth reading. ( )

Nohar Rajasthan is pushing 40, which is very old for a genetically engineered tiger whose parents were designed to fight in wars, not live to a healthy old age. He’s retired to the country and given up his life as a private investigator— but there’s one more job that demands his skills, and it won’t leave him in peace. He has to return to Los Angeles to track down a missing person and figure out why there are serious amounts of heavy firepower committed to stopping him. Swann keeps up the pace throughout; I read this one in a single sitting. ( )