Excerpt from The Nature of the Beast by Louise Penny, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Laurent tried to count the feet, tried to estimate the number by the noise. But he couldn't. And he knew then it didn't matter anyway. There would be no escape this time.

And now he tasted something foreign. Something sour.

He had terror in his mouth.

He took a deep breath. In the moments he had left, Laurent Lepage looked at his filthy fingers clasped around the assault rifle. And he saw them, pink and clean, holding burgers and poutine and corn on the cob and sweet, sillypets de soeurs at the county fair.

And holding the puppy. Harvest. Named for his father's favorite album.

And now, at the last, as he hugged the rifle, Laurent began to hum. A tune his father sang to him every night at bedtime.

"Old man look at my life," he sang under his breath. "Twenty-four and there's so much more."

Dropping the rifle, he brought out the cassette. He'd run out of time. He'd failed. And now he had to hide the cassette. Falling to his knees, he found a tangle of thick vines, old and woody. No longer caring about the noise approaching, approaching, Laurent Lepage parted the vines. They were thicker, heavier than he'd realized and he felt a spike of panic.

Had he left it too late?

He ripped and tore and clawed until a small opening appeared. Thrusting his hand in, he dropped the cassette.

It might never be found by those who needed it. But neither, he knew, would it be found by those about to kill for it.

"But I'm all alone at last," he whispered. "Rolling home to you."

Some glint inside the bramble caught his eye.

Something was in there. Something that hadn't grown, but had been placed there. Other hands had been here before him.

Laurent Lepage, his pursuers forgotten, knelt closer and bringing both hands up, he grasped the vines and yanked them apart. The creepers clung to each other, bound together. Years, decades, eons worth of growth. And concealment.

Laurent ripped, and ripped, and tore. Until a shaft of sunlight penetrated the overgrowth, the undergrowth, and he saw what was in there. What had been hiding in there longer than Laurent had been alive.

His eyes widened.

"Wow."

Excerpted from The Nature of the Beast by Louise Penny. Copyright © 2015 by Louise Penny. Excerpted by permission of Minotaur Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.