Cute, but not much to it. The utterly loyal and spectacularly skilled hound is...unlikely; the feral (as in, used to humans and insufficiently afraid of them) mountain lion is slightly less unlikely, though he gets more so as time goes on and his "hatred" grows. The kid is reasonable, including where he thinks he knows more than his grandfather - fortunately, he's willing to listen. Overall, it was fun to read but I don't see any reason why I'd want to reread it. ( )

"Boy meets dog"...and so we're back with another Jim Kjelgaard story of the wilderness, the men/boys who inhabit it, and their dogs who share in the hardships involved. This time, though, the storyline shifts back and forth between Jake, the lion hunter who is being outsmarted by the largest cougar the country has seen, and his neighbor, Johnny, who emulates the older man. Jake is determined to kill the lion that has been on a rampage, killing stock for the joy of it, and even attacking a man who was guarding his flock of sheep. With his hounds, including the precocious Buck, can Jake stop the cougar's rampage before he kills a man?

As usual with books by Kjelgaard, the story is engaging, the characters believable, and the wildlife is portrayed realistically. It's not "Big Red", but it still makes for a good read. ( )