Grayce MacKenzie is a spirited, fiercely loyal wife and mother, but she's also a wildlife biologist and a former U.S. Army military police investigator. Facing the loneliness of an almost empty nest at home, Gray answers an invitation from her best friend, Sheila Barnes, to help out at Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge in Florida for a couple of weeks before Christmas. Gray looks forward to simply surveying wintering birds on the Atlantic coast; instead, she finds herself thrust into a terrifying web of theft, deceit, and murder swirling around a very rare timepiece that has been missing for more than a century. Gray befriends Jake Easton, a Canadian who comes to Florida searching for his missing brother, Charlie, and who suspects that Charlie was murdered on Pelican Island. When Gray finds a badly decomposed body on the refuge, she begins a race against the clock to unravel this mystery. But will she be able to discover who killed Charlie Easton before she becomes the murderer's next victim? Watch of the Pelicans is a mystery that will resonate strongly with anyone who loves America's wild animals and the places in which they live. Although national parks and monuments have figured prominently in some recently published novels, our country's national wildlife refuges have not been featured. "Watch of the Pelicans" will begin a series of "Grayce MacKenzie" mysteries set in the jewels of America's critical wildlife habitats.