Patch knows something is direly wrong when all the squirrels in Central Park wake to find every foodstore stolen -- and, in the middle of winter, that means starvation. Patch''s mother is gone without a trace and in her den drifts a musky, unfamiliar scent. Hungry, tired and alone, Patch sets off into the `mountains,'' the human lands of New York City, to find food and to uncover what''s happening to his family.

He finds out too late that a war is brewing beneath his paws.

Patch is swept into an deadly battle that unites squirrels, birds, cats and dogs against vicious forces below the ground, rumoured to be led by the mysterious, legendary King Beneath. Gripping and suspenseful, Beasts of New York is a gritty urban fantasy populated by unforgettable characters as vivid and complicated as humans: from mercurial Zelina, the Queen of All Cats, to Snout, a massive and power-hungry rat, to Karmerruk, an arrogant, dangerous hawk.

Evans''s New York City of wildlife is deeply imagined; the urban landscape wavers between the familiar and the disturbingly bizarre, while Jim Westergard''s intricate wood engravings illuminate the settings and many characters. Evans, a master of dark crime thrillers, brings his fast-paced energy to an entirely new world -- one right under our feet.

Jim Westergard was born in Ogden, Utah in 1939. He was educated at a variety of colleges and universities in California, Arizona and Utah where he completed his BFA and MFA at Utah State. Westergard moved to Red Deer in 1975 and taught at Red Deer College until his retirement in 1999. He became a Canadian citizen in 1980.

Jim Westergard has been creating prints from wood engravings since university days in the late 60s, but had never completed a book-length collection until the original limited letterpress edition of Mother Goose Eggs. The first engraving for this project was finished in 1999. Then, after a four-year struggle which included an unexpected hernia operation and reprinting the press-sheets a second time with helpful hints from Crispin Elsted of the Barbarian Press (Mission, BC), Mother Goose Eggs was finally bound and released in a deluxe edition of eighty copies in 2003.

Westergard continues to create wood engravings on his cantankerous old VanderCook SP-15 proof press which he has affectionately named the `Spanish Fly''.

Born and raised in Waterloo, Ontario, Jon Evans is the son of a Rhodesian expatriate father and a tenth-generation Canadian mother. He studied Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo, graduated in 1996, and promptly moved to California to work in the burgeoning software industry. Evans spent the next fourteen years working, writing, and travelling far and wide around the globe before finally returning to Canada in 2010 -- for now. Evans is the author of four thrillers, one graphic novel, and one dark urban fantasy, and his journalism has been published in Wired, The Guardian, Reader''s Digest and The Globe and Mail. His first novel, Dark Places, won the 2005 Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel. Evans currently lives in Toronto and at www.rezendi.com.

1. Why do you think Evans chose to use animals for characters in his `children''s story for grown-ups''? How does his use of animals influence the progression of narrative? What is the nature of each species in Beasts of New York, and are there ever exceptions to these species'' average characteristics?

2. Above-ground and underground are often positioned as opposites in Beasts of New York. What do different heights signify? How are the animals'' personalities revealed by their interactions with the levels of a city? What possible symbolism lies behind the opposition of above- and underground?

3. How does this novel follow or uphold epic fantasy conventions? How does the novel challenge those conventions? If you were a bookseller, how would you categorize this novel in your store?

4. Evans intentionally changes his style of writing as the story progresses. Compare the first three chapters to the last three. What differences do you notice? How do these changes reflect Evans''s claim about Beasts of New York that it is a `children''s story for grown-ups''? Do you agree with this claim? Why do you think Evans believes this?

5. What does Patch realize about himself by the end of the story? How has he changed? Do you think Patch would have grown or developed in the way that he did regardless of the events in the story? Did Patch display any potential (for leadership, goodness, bravery, trickery, etc.) in the beginning, or did he only develop those traits as a result of hardship? What implications does your answer have for the concept of a hero''s journey?

6. Zelina, the Queen of All Cats, also changes dramatically over the course of the story. What do we learn about the nature of royalty through Zelina? What do we learn about the creation of identity? Do most of the characters in Beasts of New York undergo a similar transformation (in one way or another) as Zelina?

7. Most of Evans''s other novels are international thrillers. Can you see any hints of this in his style or theme in Beasts of New York? How do you think Evans''s previous thrillers influenced his telling of Beasts of New York?

8. Many reviewers mention that one of Beasts of New York''s most interesting aspects is its representation of the relationship between animals and humans. How do the various species view or interact with humans? Do you think there is an advocacy of environmentalism in Beasts of New York? Is this an environmentalist work? Why or why not?

9. Although the animals talk and feel emotions like humans, can you find any important differences between the animals'' thought processes and our own? Consider the animals'' attitudes towards love, death, tradition, family, and responsibility.