The Death Tax

Once a man with a seemingly limitless future, Lake Tanaka resident Dr. Kevin Cousey struggles to find a purpose in life after a prankster mangled his hand with an M-80 twenty years ago, costing him his career, his family, and very nearly his life. He thinks he has found it in the lethal hummingbird attacks that occur at the lake every year, as well as an ally in small-town newspaper editor Paul Mahr, the only other person who sees a pattern and seeks to connect the pieces of the mystery that haunts the lake. These pieces include a thirteen-year-old French exchange student with a passion for hummingbirds, the Navy diver-turned-corporate millionaire with the mysterious past she was staying with at the time of her disappearance, and the patron saint of birds.

The Death Tax is a cross between Hitchcock's The Birds (with a...