FICTION
CANYONLANDS CARNAGE
by SCOTT GRAHAM
"Scott Graham’s gripping seventh National Park Mystery offers thrills and spills...deep in the red-rock heart of one of America’s most spectacular national parks."
—KEVIN FEDARKO, author of The Emerald Mile
AUDIOBOOK NOW AVAILABLE ON STREAMING SERVICES!
When suspicious deaths befall a whitewater rafting expedition through Cataract Canyon in Canyonlands National Park, archaeologist Chuck Bender and his family recognize evil intent lies behind the tragedies. They must risk their lives and act before the murderer makes an already deadly journey on the Colorado River through Utah's red rock wilderness even deadlier—or turns on them instead.
September 2021 | Fiction | 978-1-948814-46-1 | 220 pp | $16.95
"Packed with glorious description of America's most remote national park, Graham's knowledge of whitewater rafting is detailed and intimate, bringing readers along for the tumultuous ride that is Canyonlands Carnage. This is one of Graham’s best."
—DURANGO HERALD
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SCOTT GRAHAM is the author of the acclaimed National Park Mystery series, featuring archaeologist Chuck Bender and Chuck’s spouse Janelle Ortega. In addition to the National Park Mystery series, Scott is the author of five nonfiction books, including Extreme Kids, winner of the National Outdoor Book Award. Scott is an avid outdoorsman who enjoys backpacking, river rafting, skiing, and mountaineering. He has made a living as a newspaper reporter, magazine editor, radio disk jockey, and coal-shoveling fireman on the steam-powered Durango-Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad. He lives with his spouse, who is an emergency physician, in Durango, Colorado.
MORE PRAISE FOR CANYONLANDS CARNAGE
"In Canyonlands Carnage we visit a remote park, experience the thrills and terrors of whitewater rafting on its waters, mourn the death of an elderly scientist (hint: not a natural death), and get a huge bonus: a thoughtful and informative review of water policies and allocations in our drought-stricken Southwest. Phoenix is, as archaeologist Chuck Bender, the series lead, points out, the city most endangered by current policies.”
—BARBARA PETERS, The Poisoned Pen
“From the exhilarating whitewater opening to the satisfying ending, Scott Graham’s latest outing in his National Park Mystery series, Canyonlands Carnage, is a confluence of thrills, history, and mystery as twisty as the Colorado River.”
—MICKI BROWNING, Agatha Award finalist and author of Shadow Ridge
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“Outdoor enthusiasts, environmentalists, and history buffs will all find something that satisfies in Canyonlands Carnage. Graham beautifully captures what it's like to navigate the rapids—the danger, the thrill, the skill required—while also painting a vivid picture of the region’s myriad natural wonders.”
—MYSTERY SCENE MAGAZINE
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​“This one's for those who care deeply about environmental policy in the American West.”
—PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY
ALSO BY THE AUTHOR
MESA VERDE VICTIM
by SCOTT GRAHAM
In a fast-paced tale of deadly intrigue, archaeologist Chuck Bender and his brother-in-law, Clarence Ortega, are falsely accused of murder when Chuck’s files are ransacked and the bullet-riddled body of a longtime archaeologist friend, Barney Keller, is found in Chuck’s back alley. In a quest to clear their names, Chuck and Clarence team with Chuck’s paramedic wife, Janelle Ortega, and their young daughters, tracking the unknown killer first to the hidden reinterment site of a legendary North American mummy north of the mountain town of Durango, Colorado, then to the site of a secretive archaeological dig in rugged Gunnel Canyon on the edge of Mesa Verde National Park. There, they learn of the rumored existence of spiritually significant burial vessels, known as canopic jars, reputedly made by the Ancestral Puebloan people who thrived in the cliff-walled canyons of Mesa Verde a thousand years ago. If the canopic jars exist, the vessels would radically alter the contemporary understanding of Ancestral Puebloan culture, making them invaluable—and perhaps worth killing over.
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SAGUARO SANCTION
by SCOTT GRAHAM
When Janelle Ortega’s cousin from Mexico is found brutally murdered at a remote petroglyph site in Saguaro National Park, she and her husband, archaeologist Chuck Bender, are drawn deep into a threatening web of hostility and deceit stretching south across the US-Mexico border and back in time a thousand years, to when the Hohokam people thrived in the Sonoran Desert.
Book 8 in Scott Graham's National Park Mystery Series introduces readers to the landscapes and cultural histories of Saguaro National Park in southern Arizona, providing an inside look at the wonders of the wildly popular national park and its archaeological and cultural complexities.
