The Slickrock Cafe

Sunset in paradise

I've been really busy and no internet, so no posting. I finally have my new book ready for anyone who's interested (Amazon). If you're a Nook fan (Barnes and Noble), it should be there any moment. I'm also preparing a print version, which will be available on Amazon.com in about a week.

The setting of my new book.

Here's the book description:

The crusty owner of a local rock shop has been killed in Utah’s wildlands, and ex-sheriff Bud Shumway has been asked to return to his hometown to solve the crime. He reluctantly agrees, never suspecting the case involves an old childhood friend and a pair of mysterious Incan skeletons known as the Malachites.

Set at the Slickrock Cafe, deep in the sandstone fins and domes of southeast Utah, this mystery will have you laughing, scared to death, and wondering when the mysterious Black Beast will strike again. Add in a motorcycle gang, Bud’s bumbling deputy Howie, a deputy sheriff who writes mysteries, a cantankerous rancher, and a cryptic Peruvian with his llamas, and there’s never a dull moment.

In any case, you’ll find out who the Malachites really are, and they’re sure not a tribe in the Old Testament.

This is book #2 in the Bud Shumway Mystery Series. You’ll also enjoy book #1, “The Ghost Rock Cafe.”

The cover is a photo I took up at the setting of the book, the slickrock above Moab, Utah.

I haven't been out much, as I also had to do a huge geology project on Alaska's North Slope for my graduate class. Now that everything's done, I should get back to my regular routine as Professor Emeritus at Slacker University.

This photo kind of reminds me of an impressionistic landscape painting.