When Lucy, a pregnant giant anteater from Belize, is blamed for killing the man found dead in her pen, California zookeeper Teddy Bentley races against time to find the real culprit before Lucy is shipped to another zoo, but her investigation is undermined by another murder, a threatened eviction, a father on the lam, and a socialite mother out to destroy her romance with Sheriff Joe Rejas.

"'Few true friends have I known and two were giraffes . . . ' Woodrow Wilson Nickel, age 105, feels his life ebbing away. But when he learns giraffes are going extinct, he finds himself recalling an unforgettable experience he cannot take to his grave. It's 1938. The Great Depression lingers. Hitler is threatening Europe, and world-weary Americans long for wonder. They find it in two giraffes who miraculously survive a hurricane while crossing the...