Tiger attacks were a legend in Siberia, but very few had occurred (as far as is known) in thousands of years. Interwoven with that tale is a meditation on the natural ecology of Siberia and since this must include human ecology, the book also presents brief but insightful accounts of the history of Siberia, and of the nation of which Siberia is the most wild and remote part. This is, as the Victorians used to say, one ripping good yarn. Vaillant tells the riveting story of an exceptional Amur tiger which took to stalking and killing humans during the winter of 1997, and how two teams of game wardens armed with high-powered rifles tracked it and finally shot it to death. The Amur tiger of Siberia is the largest, most powerful of the big cats, the apex predator of the sub-arctic forest (or the taiga). First, there is the central narrative, essentially a thriller/nature adventure. Vaillant's brilliant non-fiction book is most impressive not so much in its prose - which is serviceable rather than outstanding - but in its intelligent melding of three elements that would ordinarily call for three separate writers.
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