Mark Stevens’ debut thriller opens as Allison Coil, a hunter’s guide, is showing clients how to gut a recent kill. The men have paid handsomely to ride into the Colorado Flat Tops snowy wilderness to shoot elk and deer. But for Allison, the job is an escape from the haunting memories of a horrendous plane crash she barely survived two years earlier.
As Allison expertly dodges a client’s come-on, Dean Applegate, another guest, waits on a ridge above Ripplecreek Canyon. He is determined to get a good shot and worries the distant clatter made by animal rights protesters will frighten off a deer. So he is pleased when he spots something moving at the bottom of the canyon. He fires. The form crumples. But when Applegate reaches the spot to inspect his kill, he discovers it is human.
At the same time, Rocky Carnivitas, an employee of the outfitting company, is slipping an identification collar around the neck of an elk he has stunned with a dart when his boss, George Grumley, appears. An argument over an unexplained business deal ensues. Grumley accuses Rocky of sleeping with his wife and kills him.
By now, Allison is making her way back to camp when she hears a shot. Through her binoculars, she sees a form move as if struggling with something. She looks again and realizes the shape is a man who seems to be in a hurry.
At the same time, Dawn Ellenberg, the leader of the animal protesters group, has become worried about the disappearance of one of her group. But she is also angry over the appearance of only a few low-level reporters to cover the protest. Calling her group FATE, she is certain that once she puts Ripplecreek Canyon on the map, she will recruit the entire country to make it “like Burning Man, only with purpose and results.”
But up on the mountain, Applegate has heard the news that a protester is missing and confesses to Grumley that he may have killed him. Determined that no one will disturb his profitable empire, Grumley tells him to cover the body and keep his mouth shut. Instead, Applegate rubs the camouflage paint off his face and joins the protesters. Spurred by his defection, Dawn creates a full-blown media blitz.
By now the sheriff is on the scene, asking questions even as Allison tries to make sense of what has happened.
When the sheriff gets to Grumley’s house to quiz him about Rocky’s death, Trudy Grumley is not surprised at how expertly her husband dodges the truth. A delicate woman prone to seizures and bitter about the years of her husband’s neglect, she had developed a fondness for Rocky that had bordered on love. So at the sheriff’s mention of Allison Coil as someone who saw something that might be connected with Rocky’s death, Trudy decides to contact her.
Once they connect, the two very different women begin a search that takes them on a twisting path strewn with potentially deadly surprises.
Allison is a standout protagonist who comes across as someone who survived almost certain death yet has the courage and smarts to remake her life at the edge of a Colorado wilderness.
With its unique setting and diverse cast, “Antler Dust” (whose author is a former Denver Post reporter) makes a fast-paced, intriguing addition to the list of new thrillers.
Sybil Downing is a Boulder novelist.
