Alaska’s Division of Wildlife Conservation is under fire for allowing bear-baiting—the setting out of food lures to make hunting the animals easier—in Wolfe’s solid third mystery featuring anthropologist Camilla Mac Cleary (after 2016’s Judas Wolf). The state authorized the practice to provide equal opportunity for members of the disabled community, who could only kill bears for sport if their quarry was lured to their location. The dangerous downside—that the wild animals would become accustomed to eating garbage and pose a threat to human life—seems to have been realized after a bear apparently kills Brenda Schofield in her Anchorage home. Brenda and her husband were engaged in a custody battle with Camilla, the couple’s pregnancy surrogate, who, after giving birth to their daughter, sought to void the surrogacy agreement. When the police decide that the details about the killing don’t square with an animal attack, Camilla becomes a homicide suspect. Wolfe plausibly integrates wildlife conservation policy debates into a fairly clued whodunit. (BookLife)