Jack Nelson is not what I would call a great writer. Or perhaps he needed a great editor to lift this book up a notch. Nevertheless, having been in the area this book is set in, he does capture that country exceedingly well and for that I give him top marks.

Jared Buck is the sheriff in Kane County, a southern Utah county close to the Arizona border. The police force consists of him and a couple of deputies and they have a big area to cover. One of Buck's main duties is to keep tourists safe and, given how stupid some people can be, he is called out on a regular basis to find hikers that have gone missing . When he encounters a group he always gives them the talk about taking enough water and staying together and letting people know where they have gone. So when a group of Californians come to Kanab to scout locations for a movie about Everett Ruess, a young man that disappeared in the canyons in 1934. His short life and mysterious disappearance has evoked a lot of interest over the years as he regularly wrote home to family until then. His letters and his diary have been published. So Buck gives them the usual safety talk and doesn't worry too much about them because they have a local guide, Henry (Mooch) Winslow, to drive them around. Then he gets a call that they've been shot at while exploring a canyon and the two front tires of Winslow's have been shot out. Buck joins the group and checks the area they say the shots came from but he doesn't turn up anything. A mystery that may never be solved it appears but then the banker bankrolling the film is shot dead in the parking lot of the motel they are staying in. Ronald Murdock seemed to Buck like a pretty nice guy but someone must have had it in for him. Buck has a major crime on his hands. By the time he is finished the investigation he will have put on a lot of miles, including going to San Francisco where Murdock was based. He also has to deal with some upset ranchers whose cattle have been removed by federal authorities from the Escalante National Monument where they had grazing rights. That may have seemed like an unnecessary addition to the book but, to me, it added to the local colour.

Jared Buck is an interesting character and I'd read more books with him as the protagonist. Unfortunately, there don't seem to be any more. ( )

Enter the lazy writer.

The books I value most are those that are well-researched, appropriately detailed, and well written. The writing here is not the worst I've read; it's pedestrian, often including too much repetition and unnecessary words, and there is no suspense that I could find. What I found seriously lacking was accuracy and detail.

A group of people rides into Kanab with the intent of checking out the surrounding area for the purpose of making a film about the disappearance of a young backpacker many years ago. The young man was well known because of his odd habits and his clear dedication to nature. Many letters survive to tell much of his tale, but not the ending. The movie crew swoops into the office of the sheriff, Jared Buck, looking for assistance and information. They say they will make the movie if the banker with them approves a loan for it, and the banker does seem enthusiastic.

NObody seems to be aware that one must obtain permits to make movies in Kanab as well as in any of the Federal lands nearby. It is assumed that they can just do it.

When one of the crew is killed by two gunshots in the middle of the night, outdoors, there is an assumption that some transient drug runner or other thief did the deed, that it was opportunistic. Jared is not so sure but he relied mostly on instinct. In fact, throughout the book he is driven by something not feeling right. There is very little detail in what people tell him and his questions are vague. When asked about progress he says the investigation is moving along or that they are following up on leads. Vagueness predominates.

Other items: the county prosecutor is on Jared's case, and I recall the Attorney General gets into it, too. They say their reputations are on the line. But these offices don't oversee sheriffs and are not responsible for investigating murders.

Nelson clearly loves Kanab and the nearby public lands. Yet he makes excuses for the cattle ranchers who overgraze the land. Public land. He lets the ranchers spout out untruths without correcting them, and comes close to demonizing the Bureau of Land Management for being too hard on the ranchers. It is well known that the BLM bends over backwards to accommodate ranchers.

One thing we hear in this book (and in real life) is the cattle ranchers saying that the BLM knows nothing about the land and nothing about cattle. The ranchers still accuse mountain lions of killing their herds and say that grazing is good for the environment. The facts contradict these statements. Actual studies show that mountain lions and other predators kill far fewer herd animals than ranchers say, and that grazing destroys native plants, which provide erosion protection and habitat for native species. The fact that the BLM allows grazing at all is not protective of our federal lands. The greater public deserves better. Why do a small number of ranchers take precedence?

Lazy writing, few details, even about the surrounding natural beauty, make this barely worth the two stars I'm giving it.

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