Trace Temple’s family lost their New Mexico ranch after somebody shot an endangered wolf, and now he’s living out of his truck, broke and pissed at the government. A secretive militia offers him money to kill One-Eleven, the she-wolf leading the Dark Canyon pack in the Gila wilderness. He’s good at backcountry travel, but she’s better. Brown gives her long stretches of the book from her own side without turning her into a person, and after Trace nearly dies dragging himself out of a canyon with a bear trap on his ankle, he changes sides. Then the militia sends a professional assassin after both of them. The book is completely implausible — there’s an improbable romance, a strange wildman character, a tweaker, a massive wildfire — but it makes for a fun, pulpy, high-tension romp through some of the Southwest’s most untamed lands.