A reclusive teenager finds love while searching for his friend's killer in this Edgar Award-winning YA mystery';timely and compelling' (Publishers Weekly). Seventeen-year-old Chip Clewt is known to most people simply as ';the weirdo.' After barely surviving a terrible fire, he's taken to living like a hermit in the Powhatan Swamp, a National Wildlife Refuge in South Carolina. These days, Chip works for the Refuge and has little contact with anyone besides his boss, Tom. But now his hideaway is at the center of a heated controversy. As the hunting ban on the Powhatan is about to expire, environmentalists want to protect the wildlife while eager hunters are oiling their guns. And when Tom disappears, Chip suspects that the conflict has turned deadly. While his new friend Samantha inspires Chip to reconnect, the pair must also connect the dots of a puzzling and dangerous mystery before it's too late.Includes a readers guide.
