A teenage girl wakes up alone in a bed and breakfast in Santa Fe with no memory of who she is or how she got there. The innkeeper explains that the man who brought her there said he was her father. But the one thing she knows for sure is that he is not--and that she must flee before he returns. Taking his jacket, money, and gun, she hikes into the surrounding mountains; in an unlikely scenario that only a writer as talented as Grimes can make plausible, she survives the harsh winter and even flourishes, seeking solace in the company of coyotes she frees from their illegal traps. When she reemerges from the wilderness a few months later, seeking to unravel the mystery of who she is, she walks into the life of 14-year-old Mary Dark Hope, a lonely orphan who becomes her ally and companion. Together they track the stranger who abducted her, who holds the key to the secret of her identity--the man she knows only as "Daddy."

The thrilling odyssey that takes the two girls into the murky world of illegal dogfights, hunting, and wild-animal profiteers culminates in a dramatic confrontation, but it is the brilliantly realized characters rather than the plot that capture the reader's imagination and keep the pages turning. Another tour de force for Grimes, and a cause for celebration for her many fans. --Jane Adams


From Publishers Weekly
Engaging adolescent Mary Dark Hope, who appeared in Rainbow's End, returns in this uneven thriller/animal-rights polemic. After Mary befriends Andi, a teenage amnesiac who releases trapped animals in New Mexico's Sandia Mountains, the two girls head after a mysterious man who Andi thinks may have kidnapped her and knows her identity. Conveniently, the orphaned Mary has a bank account, a car, her dead sister's driver's license and gullible caregivers. The girls easily encounter garrulous informants along the way, finding a friend and protector in Reuel, a salt-of-the-earth dropout who knows everyone in Salmon, Idaho, where they've tracked their quarry. Once Andi identifies Harry Wine, a river expedition outfitter, as her abductor, the book shifts into a series of predictable episodes that show unthinking people gruesomely mistreating animals and that reveal the arrogant Wine's vile nature. Mary and Andi rescue an abused dog, go white-water rafting, spy on a "canned hunt" for endangered animals. In a violent scene near the book's end, Andi confronts Wine, then disappears. Although Grimes writes movingly of the plight of maltreated animals and gracefully evokes the beauty of the American West, many scenes are too long and aimless. Most of the characters are stereotypes, their individual motivations hard to discern. Andi's disappearance is especially puzzlingAlike the Lone Ranger, she stirs up the populace and vanishes, leaving the cleanup to others. This is not a Richard Jury book, and fans will miss him. Rights, Peter Lampack Agency. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From School Library Journal
YA-Two brave and resourceful teenagers careen from one wild adventure to another in this gripping tale of kidnapping, murder, and more. The older girl wakes alone in a bed-and-breakfast near the Sandia Mountains in New Mexico. She has complete amnesia but she's sure that the person who brought her there is not her "Daddy," as he described himself to the proprietress. She searches the room, finds a wad of money and a backpack labeled A. O., and heads for the mountains, where she finds an empty cabin in the foothills. She calls herself Andi and decides she must be about 15. Sneaking into a pharmacy in a nearby town, she is discovered by Mary Dark Hope, a 14-year-old orphan who takes Andi home with her. Andi persuades Mary to help her find out who she is, and the two set off on a series of adventures involving animal rescue and a white-water rafting expedition led by "Daddy," who turns out to be a rapist, pedophile, and murderer. In the end, he is exposed and killed by Andi in self-defense. She discovers that she is also an orphan and sets off to find out who her parents were. YAs will find this somewhat unbelievable but riveting story entertaining and the young heroines delightful and admirable.Molly Connally, Kings Park Library, Fairfax County, VA Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Teenaged Andi Olivier lives in a cabin in the mountains near Santa Fe, rescuing animals caught in traps. She doesnt remember who she isher name is made up, based on the A.O. she finds stitched on her backpackbut she does remember waking up in a motel where, she is told, Daddy has deposited her and then gone on to do some business. Andi is convinced that Daddy is not her real father, and after hooking up with 14-year-old Mary, whose family have all perished, she sets out to find the man she thinks abducted her and to recover her past. Along the way, the two girls run into evidence of animal abusedogs starved for dog fights, tame beasts from zoos set up for fake huntsthat will make the stomach of any decent reader churn. The story is not exactly probableamazingly, months later people recall vivid details of the man just passing through town who fits the description of Daddybut the prose is suspenseful, the ending satisfying, and Grimess passionate concern for animal welfare deeply moving. Buy wherever Grimes is popular.Barbara Hoffert, Library JournalCopyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Grimes' latest opens dramatically with an unnamed girl rescuing coyotes who are caught in cruel, steel-jaw traps. We learn she's an amnesiac who woke up one morning in a Santa Fe bed-and-breakfast to discover from the owner that she'd been brought in dead asleep the night before by a man claiming to be her father. She takes the name Andi and is befriended by a young teen orphan, Mary Dark Hope. What holds the reader as the two girls set out by car on a mission to find "Daddy" is the naturalness of the dialogue, the sharp characterizations, and the foreboding tone. Grimes eventually loses her readers, however, thanks to some heavy-handed flogging of animal-rights issues and an overabundance of melodramatic escapades: the girls rescue an abused dog, not once but twice, from a ring that promotes dogfights; the girls investigate a "canned hunt" of trapped animals. Then there's the final confrontation between Andi and "Daddy" --as full of violence and portentous meaning as a TV movie. This is a definite disappointment coming from the talented Grimes, but that won't stop her fans from wanting to read it. Sally Estes


From Kirkus Reviews
The longtime chronicler of Inspector Richard Jury and his menagerie of friends (The Stargazey, 1998, etc.) goes west for this tale of a young woman on the road from nowhere aiming to solve the mystery of her identity. What would you do if you woke up one morning in a bed-and-breakfast with no memory of how you got there or anything else about yourself, only the smiling promise of the b&b owner that ``Daddy'' had gone into Santa Fe and would be back in a couple of hours? Well, Andi Oliver, who spontaneously christens herself from the initials on her backpack and the name of the nearby Sandia Crest, isn't the sort of person who takes things lying down, and long before Daddy returns she has stuffed her backpack with $600 and a Smith & Wesson she finds among his things and has vamoosed. Her first wanderings take her to a mountain cabin that becomes her headquarters as she ventures out to rescue coyotes caught in steel-jawed traps. But months later, on one of her trips to a pharmacy for the codeine she uses to anaesthetize her trapped patients, she hooks up with Mary Dark Hope, 13, who sees Andi as the perfect replacement for her own murdered older sister Angela, and the two decide that, instead of waiting to see if Daddy ever returns to menace Andi again, they'll hunt him down and confront him themselves. The girls have precious little to go onjust the suspicious behavior of a man who gave Andi a lift and the fact that Daddy's Camaro had Idaho platesand they're constantly getting sidetracked by their weakness for suffering animals. But their adventures among government animal controllers, white-water rafters, hunters of caged wild animals, and dogfight connoisseurs inexorably bring them closer to a showdown with Daddy. Grimes's young heroines are as grave and enchanting as you'd expect, and she shows a nice eye for the relations between inhumanity toward animals and other, more shocking kinds of same. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Book Description
In a unique departure from her acclaimed Richard Jury novels, bestselling author Martha Grimes presents "a lyrical coming-of-age journey" (Chicago Sun-Times) featuring two characters from her previous novels.

A nameless young woman awakes in a strange bed-and-breakfast with a message that her "Daddy" will soon return. Fearing the worst, she flees into the wilderness and meets Mary Dark Hope. Together, the two track down the one person who holds the key to the girl's identity: The man who abducted her....

Phenomenal praise for Biting the Moon:

"A coming-of-age odyssey [that] inspires some grand nature writing from Grimes."--New York Times Book Review

"Grave and enchanting."--Kirkus Reviews

"[Biting the Moon] will expand Miss Grimes's readership base, her own scope, and her readers' horizons...a plot that keeps readers turning pages at breakneck speed to the harrowing conclusion....Darker than many of the Jury novels--and far more sinewy--Biting the Moon is an intriguing departure."--Richmond Times-Dispatch

"Characters to care about...evocative."--Chicago Tribune

"Suspenseful...satisfying...deeply moving."--Library Journal

FROM THE PUBLISHER

She does not know who she is, where she's from, how she got here. She wakes one morning in a bed-and-breakfast alone. She is told by the owner she came in "dead asleep" with her father. But she knows the man is not her father. She takes her backpack, bedroll, and the wad of money she finds in his jacket and heads for the mountains, seeing in their bleak and towering landscape some kind of safety. Months later, she walks down from the mountains and into the life of fourteen-year-old Mary Dark Hope. Bound by their lack of family, their murky pasts, their affinity for animals, they set out to find the man who abducted her. Whitewater rafting, canned hunts, molestation, and murder - all move toward an inevitable and harrowing confrontation.

SYNOPSIS

In Biting the Moon, Martha Grimes explores the mystery of a girl's abandonment in the mountains of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and the path that leads to the truth about her life. Part psychological suspense and part outright mystery, Biting the Moon is a bit of a departure for Grimes — and a successful one!

FROM THE CRITICS

Ann Prichard - USA Today

Biting the Moon reveals empathy for animals and children, but remains a rather artless excursion from an otherwise adept author.

Publishers Weekly

Engaging adolescent Mary Dark Hope, who appeared in Rainbow's End, returns in this uneven thriller/animal-rights polemic. After Mary befriends Andi, a teenage amnesiac who releases trapped animals in New Mexico's Sandia Mountains, the two girls head after a mysterious man who Andi thinks may have kidnapped her and knows her identity. Conveniently, the orphaned Mary has a bank account, a car, her dead sister's driver's license and gullible caregivers. The girls easily encounter garrulous informants along the way, finding a friend and protector in Reuel, a salt-of-the-earth dropout who knows everyone in Salmon, Idaho, where they've tracked their quarry. Once Andi identifies Harry Wine, a river expedition outfitter, as her abductor, the book shifts into a series of predictable episodes that show unthinking people gruesomely mistreating animals and that reveal the arrogant Wine's vile nature. Mary and Andi rescue an abused dog, go white-water rafting, spy on a "canned hunt" for endangered animals. In a violent scene near the book's end, Andi confronts Wine, then disappears. Although Grimes writes movingly of the plight of maltreated animals and gracefully evokes the beauty of the American West, many scenes are too long and aimless. Most of the characters are stereotypes, their individual motivations hard to discern. Andi's disappearance is especially puzzling — like the Lone Ranger, she stirs up the populace and vanishes, leaving the cleanup to others. This is not a Richard Jury book, and fans will miss him. Rights, Peter Lampack Agency.

KLIATT

To quote KLIATT's March 2000 review of the Books on Tape audiobook edition: Grimes's juvenile adventure story begins cleverly. Andi Oliver, suffering from amnesia, awakens in a hotel room. A man who told attendants that he was her father has gone but will return for her shortly. Frightened, Andi finds some money in the room and heads for some inhospitable mountains where she just happens to find a fully stocked cabin in which to spend the winter. Andi makes contact with 14-year-old Mary Dark Hope. They learn to drive, get a map, and set off on an improbable adventure in search of the man who may have been Andi's father. Numerous subplots allow Grimes to lecture her audience on a range of animal rights issues: tapping, coyote population, dog fights, commercial hunting. KLIATT Codes: JSA—Recommended for junior and senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 1999, Random House/Onyx, 302p, 20cm, 99-42040, $12.00. Ages 13 to adult. Reviewer: Edna M. Boardman; Former Lib. Media Spec., Magic City Campus, Minot, ND, May 2000 (Vol. 34 No. 3)

Library Journal

Teenaged Andi Olivier lives in a cabin in the mountains near Santa Fe, rescuing animals caught in traps. She doesnt remember who she isher name is made up, based on the A.O. she finds stitched on her backpackbut she does remember waking up in a motel where, she is told, Daddy has deposited her and then gone on to do some business. Andi is convinced that Daddy is not her real father, and after hooking up with 14-year-old Mary, whose family have all perished, she sets out to find the man she thinks abducted her and to recover her past. Along the way, the two girls run into evidence of animal abusedogs starved for dog fights, tame beasts from zoos set up for fake huntsthat will make the stomach of any decent reader churn. The story is not exactly probableamazingly, months later people recall vivid details of the man just passing through town who fits the description of Daddybut the prose is suspenseful, the ending satisfying, and Grimess passionate concern for animal welfare deeply moving. Buy wherever Grimes is popular.Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal

School Library Journal