One man's search for the elusive mountain lion and his unexpected discoveries along the way.

Caught in Fading Light is a richly contemplative account of one man's quest to see a mountain lion in the wild hills and mountains of northern California, where he lives. In spare, elegant prose, Gary Thorp describes his adventures, from taking a one-day class on tracking animals to visiting a mountain lion in the zoo to following a rattlesnake's progress through the grass to encountering bobcats and eagles on his numerous forays into the hills by day and, increasingly, by night.

Delicately weaving natural history, personal narrative and Zen Buddhism, Caught in Fading Light explores what it means to seek something you might not find, taking solace in the notion that the "value of any enterprise is in completely experiencing what happens."

Gary Thorp began studying Zen in 1960 and was later lay-ordained in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. A former bookseller and jazz pianist, he is a full-time writer, doing research in marine biology and the ecology of mountain lions. He lives with his wife, Lura, in Marin County.

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