NIGHT GAME Tough, caring, and distinctive John Marquez is back. A former DEA agent who is now the head of the special operations unit of the California Department of Fish and Game, Marquez brings gritty investigative techniques and a clouded past to his role in enforcing the poaching laws of California. In this gripping new crime novel, former federal drug agent Marquez again pushes the boundaries of safety and politics when he takes his team of Fish and Game officers on a dangerous operation in pursuit of bear poachers. A murdered student, a missing game warden, and threats to his own family draw Marquez even more deeply into the tangled world of international traffickers and local thugs. At the center of his investigation is a wildly attractive and highly unreliable woman who sets some traps of her own. Night Game hits hard and moves fast toward a finish that ricochets through wilderness, backwoods towns, and the darker recesses of love and greed. A second novel that delivers—and firmly establishes—a great series. Read an excerpt. See photos taken during Kirk's research on bear poaching. BUY THE BOOK from an independent bookstore, Chronicle Books, Amazon, or Barnes & Noble. NIGHT GAMES Chronicle Books, October, 2004 Hardcover 365 pages ISBN: 0-8118-4112-X PRAISE FOR NIGHT GAME Splendid second outing in a procedural series about a tough-as-nails California Fish & Game investigator busting a cabal of bear poachers....Russell manages expertly in shifting between scenes of shocking brutality and sour cynicism (for conniving bureaucrats and venal lawyers), not to mention in portraying the many levels of affection Marquez feels for his team, his family, the animals he's sworn to protect, and the magnificent wilderness that surrounds him. Superb suspense, culminating in an exhausting but satisfying series of chases, showdowns, and bitter glimpses of justice denied.    —KIRKUS REVIEWS (starred selection) Genuine evil and heart-stopping action are not reserved solely for the gritty inner city, but flourish as well in Kirk Russell's rural California settings in his second John Marquez outing, Night Game. This is a series, and an author, to hitch on to.    —C.J. BOX The return of the Fish and Game officer...John Marquez, this time working forests rather than the shore, proves the debut was no fluke. Russell writes of the wilds with deep knowledge, making his story achingly credible.    —BOOKLIST Kirk Russell writes with the clarity of a mountain stream. He has captured a fascinating subculture and peopled it with characters deep enough to drown in. The story flows through the brain with an exhilarating rush.    —NEVADA BARR Night Game is an engaging, harrowing, and at times heart-breaking tale told with crisp but evocative prose. Author Kirk Russell guides us through a world of ruthless bear poachers and organ harvesters, with an unerring eye for how the marginalized mandate of wildlife protectors opens up into a much larger story of who we are and how we live. A bracing, convincing, and heartfelt read.    —DAVID CORBETT There's a welcome newcomer in the territory currently dominated by Nevada Barr and C.J. Box—the environmental thriller. Kirk Russell's Lt. John Marquez, an undercover game warden operating in Northern California, is as stubborn and determined as Barr's peripatetic park ranger Anna Pigeon and Box's Wyoming warden Joe Pickett. He cares just as passionately about putting away the poachers and other bad guys who despoil the wilderness. But he is also his own man....   This is not one of those series in which the bosses or the FBI agents or the local cops are the enemy. They have flaws, just as Marquez does. They pull rank, there are hurt feelings and blows to the ego. But in the end, all the law-enforcement people are working for a common goal, however irritating they may be in guarding their own turf.   The tension never stops; one harrowing confrontation follows another.... Russell has a real feel for and love of the California wilderness. It is everywhere in the intensity of his writing. Ultimately, his thrillers show us that all life is fragile and too easily destroyed by greedy and evil men.    —PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER