The Bird Skinner

Slowing down from a hard-lived life and a recent leg amputation, ornithologist Jim Kennoway retreats to an island in Maine: to drink, smoke and be left alone. There, he thinks back to his youth, working for Naval Intelligence during World War II in the Solomon Islands. While spying on Japanese shipping from behind enemy lines, Jim befriended Tosca, a young islander who worked with him as a scout. Now, thirty years later, Tosca has sent his daughter Cadillac to stay with Jim in the weeks before she begins premed at Yale. She arrives to Jim’s consternation – yet she will capture his heart and that of everyone she meets, irrevocably changing their lives.

Jacket cover courtesy of Grove Press. Author photo: Tim Cornwell.