Zoo Crew

The Zoo Crew. A random assortment of individuals that came together in western Montana out of circumstance, stayed together by choice. Among them are Ajax, a gaming genius far from his native Boston. Kade, a forest firefighter that spends half his year roaming the blazing countryside, the other half perusing the local nightlife. Sage, registered nurse and proverbial mother hen for the group. At the helm is Drake Bell, displaced Southerner and third year law student. Fresh off a summer spent interning in legal hell, he is only mildly certain he even wants to continue down the path he's on. Until an old friend comes to find him that is. Eight months pregnant and closing fast on her due date, the girl is scared. What was supposed to have been a simple surrogacy agreement has gone tragically wrong. Young girls like her are coming up missing or even worse. She's on the run and has nobody else to turn to. If everything the girl is saying is true, some of the largest players in the Missoula community are involved. Armed only with his own trepidations and the loyalty of those around him, Drake must find a way to save his friend and his own growing skepticism before it's too late.

Bargain Mart, long a fixture in the Missoula economic structure has fallen on hard times. Things are dire, and if a financial windfall doesn't arrive soon, their doors will close. Across town, a woman grieves her recently deceased husband. Sitting alone at her kitchen table trying to put her life back in order, a call arrives asking where his quarter million dollar life insurance policy should be sent. A quarter million dollar life insurance policy she never knew existed. Answering the phone on the other end of her call for help is Drake Bell, third year law student at the University of Montana. Joined by his partner Ava, and his loyal friends the Zoo Crew, Drake must attempt to make sense of the case Alice presents him. A case that only grows more complex as people continue to pass in Missoula, all with ties to Bargain Mart, all with large life insurance policies attached to them. Policies known in the corporate world as Dead Peasants . . .

Two weeks ago, Lukas Webb was an Army sniper on the front lines in Afghanistan. Upon finding out his father has just days to live, he is granted a compassionate discharge and returns home to Hamilton, Montana to say goodbye and take over the family business. Just days into his tenure at the helm of the WB Ranch, he appears at the front door of an Agriculture Commission meeting carrying a rifle and fires two perfect shots before being taking three rounds himself. While Lukas sits in Hamilton Memorial Hospital in a medical-induced coma, a frenzy wages on outside. Local law enforcement and prosecutors parade in front of the cameras, blaming the actions on a maladjusted serviceman, using the incident to bolster their own standing. Veterans in the area bristle at the treatment, threatening to lash back at any time. Townspeople claim they no longer feel safe on the streets of Hamilton. With just days remaining before Lukas wakes and is hauled off to prison for the rest of his life, a call is made to budding attorney Drake Bell for assistance. Employing the help of his friends the Zoo Crew, he begins a maddening search for the real reason behind the shooting, something he suspects resonates much closer to home . . .

Deep in the heart of winter, things are beginning to shift for the Zoo Crew. Drake Bell is wrapping up his last days in law school and preparing to take the bar exam. Kade Keuhl has finally relented and agreed to apply for his private investigator's license. The ski lift at the local Snow Plaza has grounded everybody from hitting the slopes. And Emily, Drake's former college flame, is back in town looking to make him an offer that could alter everything moving forward. A hundred miles east of Missoula, just outside of Butte, the mansion of reclusive billionaire Wes Koenig is burned to the ground. A radical new accelerant is used to reduce the place to rubble in a fraction of expected time, leaving local law enforcement stumped and heightening the impetus to apprehend whoever is responsible. Working under the constraints of expectations and growing unrest, a much deep story unfolds than anybody anticipated. What started as a simple case of arson soon begins to stretch back a decade in length, encompassing land deals gone bad, deep personal ideologies, and activism taken to its ugly extreme.

Things are beginning to evolve for the Zoo Crew. Drake Bell has passed the bar exam, accepted a new position, and begun a new phase of his legal career. His first case to walk through the door is in defense of a young woman that was the driver in an accident that left a young cyclist in the hospital. She accepts her guilt, but something about her story strikes a chord with Drake, causing him to dig a little deeper. What starts as an attempt to shield the young woman from the misguided crusade of a prosecutor serving ulterior motives soon begins to shift, taking things in a direction that Drake never could have anticipated. Within days he finds himself on a quest that is part medical mystery and part history lesson, trying in earnest to understand the condition afflicting his patient and what it means for the situation she now finds herself in. Again armed with the myriad skills of the Crew, he begins to uncover a trail that stretches back more than 100 years, involving some of the oldest wealth and industry in the state, and those that would do anything to continue protecting it.