David Sundstrand, Shadow of the Raven

Shadow of the Raven

David Sundstrand

Dunne, Feb 2007, $24.95

ISBN 0312361351

On his off day, Bureau of Land Management officer Francisco "Frank" Flynn plans to spend time enjoying the bighorn sheep wandering the Mojave Desert; but to his chagrin, for the third time in six months, he has found a desiccated corpse whose eyes and nose were dessert for ravens. Frank assumes the dead man was probably a poacher or a sportsman. However, he finds it odd that the deceased has no boots or any footwear even as he calls it in to his superior at the BLM.

Frank is disgusted with the Inyo County Sheriff's Department who sent morons into the desert. He soon joins with local reporter Linda Reyes to investigate what happened to the victim with no shoes or evidence of a water container nearby. At the same time they look around beyond the sheriff's designated "crime scene" ring to other keys spots like a watering hole, three of the four Miller brothers (Roy, Hickey and Jason) look for their missing sibling Donnie. When Roy learns that Donnie is dead, assuming mixed-race Frank is an impoverished, illegal guide, he forces him to escort the threesome into a desert canyon so they can kill the hunter who he believes murdered his sibling.

SHADOW OF THE RAVEN is a fabulous whodunit starring Frank, a fabulous lead character who fits in so well in the rugged terrain; he makes the tale though the support cast at BLM, the sheriff's department, the reporter and the low-life Millers enhance understanding of him and of the desert. Fans of Joe Picket will fully appreciate this descriptive, suspense-filled mystery.

Harriet Klausner