The trail leads to the door of Adrienne's disreputable ex-husband, Byron, Olivia's father. Byron has an alibi and an unlimited reserve of jealousy and hatred for Will. Olivia's kidnapping only fuels the simmering fire between them. But as the police and FBI investigations grow colder with the oncoming winter, it appears to Will that his only hope of ever seeing Olivia again lies in cooperating with Byron and his shady underworld connections. Will must follow Byron on a harrowing journey into the darkest swamps of the Okeefenokee, where he'll find out just how much courage this muskrat can muster.

A compelling mix of colorful characters, vividly drawn locales, and edge-of-the-seat action, Muskrat Courage builds on the promise of Philip Lawson's first novel and establishes him as a writer to treasure.

"Muskrat Courage is a fierce and (in its extended, headlong final sequence) an almost unbearably suspenful novel: Will Keats's desperate pursuit of his lover's young daughter and her kidnappers is furious in its intensity. Philip Lawson has merged themes of parental love, parental guilt, the ambivalence and duality of parental feeling, and some of the ugliest villains in contemporary fiction with integrity...