Why did the great horned owl shriek a blood-curdling cry over a desolate swamp in South Florida? And why did Jean McKay, a mild school teacher from the Midwest, conclude that the bird's alarm cry signaled an attempt on her life? Had she learned too much about the disappearance of a prominent ornithologist from a bird walk two years before? Now she must shake off denial that one (ormore) of her birding companions, who had been so welcoming to her, might harboran awful secret. Although a policeman friend says, "I can't think of any group of people less dangerous than a bunch of bird-watchers," she comes to realize that she might be in deadly peril if she were alone in a remote area with one of the group. But which one? Jean McKay's pursuit of the mystery of the missing birder at her increasing peril and the subsequent murder of an admired friend is the subject of Alarm Cry. Phillips Huston has set the mystery in the ever glades¿and swamps of South Florida and the cultures that surround them. Huston, a widely published magazine writer and editor, has been watching birds sinceage eight. He lives in Naples, Florida.