Book excerpt: Derrick Steel was three years old when his mother moved him and his two sisters away from rural northeast Mississippi to live in St. Louis. Now twelve years later, fi fteen-year-old Derrick learns that his father, Luke Steel has become a legendary taxidermist in Mississippi because of his more unconventional specimens: a huge Hereford bull that now stands beside a prominent steak house, a pit bulldog who won more than forty-one illegal fi ghts before being shot by the local sheriff , and a wrestling bear whose fi nal match almost caused a second civil war in the county. But Derrick also discovers that his father has now been placed in a mental institution. Why had Luke Steel not contacted his son? And why was he now in a mental institution? Derricks answers can only be solved by returning to the place of his birth. And since his initial link to his father is an aunt who is deaf, Derrick must fi rst learn to communicate in American Sign Language.