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Natural History
Natural History
Natural History
Ebook279 pages3 hours

Natural History

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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Searching for mythical beasts, a family ignores the monster in the backyard

It all started with the death of an ape. This is not so odd in Monkeyland,the sanctuary that Patrick and Jane founded together in a last-ditch attempt to revive their flagging marriage. But there was something different about this dead ape, and Patrick soon becomes obsessed with uncovering the mystery surrounding its death.

Meanwhile, Jane’s in Zaire shooting a nature show and possibly cheating on Patrick with the producer; their son, Charlie, was fired from the sanctuary after an altercation with a customer; and daughter Jo is home from boarding school but may as well have stayed for all they see her.

Then there’s the predatory cat stalking the periphery of the dilapidated zoo, dodging just out of sight, evading capture, and driving Patrick’s obsession to a fever pitch. While Jane and Patrick follow their preoccupations, searching for wild beasts, they manage to ignore the one growing in their midst. Finally, a gruesome act forces the family to come to terms with a dark reality.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateJan 27, 2015
ISBN9781497692503
Author

Neil Cross

NEIL CROSS is the author of the UK-published Christendom, Mr. In-Between, Holloway Falls, Always the Sun, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Heartland, and Natural History. He is the lead writer for the BBC's hit series Spooks, known as MI-5 on BBC America, and the creator of the upcoming BBC crime series Luther. Burial is his first work published in the United States. He lives in New Zealand with his wife and two children.

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Reviews for Natural History

Rating: 3.43749999375 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

16 ratings3 reviews

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I really enjoyed this book. Set in Devon during the late 1990s so Halle Bopp the comet makes an appearance. I felt for the Jones family and really liked them mostly Patrick the father. Unusual story buying the monkey sanctuary Jane, Patricks wife going off to Africa. You keep waiting for something to happen and you feel it coming but when it does its shocking. (I dont want to spoil the story but this is a great book)
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Natural History is a peculiar book, one which seems better on reflection than whilst reading it. The characters, drawn from a family unit and their associates, are believably understated though mostly dysfunctional. The circumstances of running a small primate zoo provide the food for thought and various comparisons between the behaviour, often seemingly extreme and incomprehensible, of the animals and their human carers.The focus of the book is Patrick, devoted to a wife who finds celebrity which provides her with escape from the confines of the zoo and the family and becomes a long term and distant absentee as things fall apart at home. The cameo role of Patrick's Beast of Bodmin style big cat sighting generates tension and foreboding for a while and it was as I was really beginning to lose interest in the mundane lives of the characters that I expected, hoped even, that the involvement of the beast would come to the fore; it does but not as one might expect. When it arrives the sudden, explosive climax is cleverly crafted with more than one twist and a revelation which solves an earlier mystery. The aftermath to the violence affords reflection and comparison of the the nature of the animals and their human counterparts, their instinctive behaviour in captivity or relative freedom, their bonds and loyalties, cruelty and kindness, the species separated only in their evolved state of intellect, capability and ingenuity. Luck plays a part in allowing the family to move on, the ill fated zoo closes down and in breaking free from the shackles of the zoo and his offspring Patrick finds comfort in surprising and heartwarming manner. So, that should be that, only we might remember that there's a killer still on the loose.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Jane and Patrick take on Monkeyland, a failing animal sanctuary on the Devon coast. But Jane never stops looking for the next cause and soon she's off in Zaire, leaving Patrick to take care of the kids while wondering who would purposefully poison Rue, the most gentle and loving gorilla in the sanctuary.The ominousness in this book sort of crept up on me. I enjoyed reading it and didn't notice it was almost over until all hell broke lose. Despite that these "animal lovers" also apparently love to kick dogs in the butt, bash rats brains in and watch monkeys kill ducklings (I don't get it,) they are mostly realistic characters, occasionally endearing, and I wanted to see the family do well. I never suspected how well the author would make everything fall spectacularly apart.It isn't a crime novel or a horror novel so much as a story about a family with all its normal and abnormal bits, and a story about the differences between human beings and our monkey counterparts (or lack of difference.) It's a quiet novel with a pretty big impact.

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Natural History - Neil Cross

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