The Island of Last Things

Sloley (Disaster’s Children) imbues this stirring near-future ecological disaster drama with a fierce sense of hope. It’s set on San Francisco’s Alcatraz Island, where the former prison has been retrofitted as a zoo. It’s the last of its kind, following a mold blight that caused mass extinctions. Camille, one of the zookeepers, enjoys caring for the animals, whom she’s always preferred to humans. She’s never wanted to leave, at least not until the arrival of Sailor, an enigmatic zookeeper with a magnetic personality. Though the rule-following Camille is initially rankled by Sailor’s intense conviction that animals should be free to experience life the way they did before the extinctions, she soon embraces Sailor’s vision of a sanctuary where animals of all kinds can roam. The women hatch a plan to liberate one of the zoo’s denizens: Achilles the crocodile, who has fallen ill. As they dodge militant guards and conformist administrative workers, Sailor must also contend with a cartel bent on snatching Achilles to sell on the black market. Sloley keeps the pages turning with a thrilling plot and an intriguing slow drip of information about this dystopian world. Readers will be hooked. Agent: Sharon Pelletier, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret. (Aug.)