Canyon Sacrifice by Scott Graham

First Line: A group of middle-aged Japanese tourists gathered in a tight knot twenty feet from the edge of the Grand Canyon, focused on something Chuck Bender could not see.

Recently married to a woman with two young daughters, archaeologist Chuck Bender decides to take his new family camping at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Disaster strikes when the youngest girl is kidnapped. The kidnapper's demands seem to focus on Chuck himself, and even though he's nowhere near suited to the task, as a new husband and father, he's determined to step up to the plate and do whatever it takes for the safe return of his daughter.

Canyon Sacrifice is going to make you see the Grand Canyon in a whole new way. Chuck Bender is the perfect guide, as he weaves strands of geology, park history, Native American culture, and archaeology into a good old action-packed page turner.

I loved how Graham put together all the canyon lore in a non-academic, non-preachy manner that tells readers just as much about the characters as it does the Grand Canyon itself. Chuck Bender is a fascinating main character. He's a loner who's been running his own archaeology business for years, so getting used to being part of a family is going to be a huge adjustment for him to begin with-- but to start things off with a kidnapping? As Bender races to save his daughter, he learns quite a bit about himself and what he thinks is most important in life.

Probably my favorite section in the book is Chuck's hike down into the canyon. It's a race against time that could very well kill him. The entire episode tells us a great deal about Bender the man, as well as the respect with which the Grand Canyon should be treated.

Graham also shows skill in plotting a mystery, and now that he has his main character well established, I'm really looking forward to the next books in this series. His secondary characters need to have a chance to shine, too.

If you're a reader who loves Nevada Barr or C.J. Box, chances are excellent that you'll enjoy this first National Park mystery. Give it a try.

Canyon Sacrifice by Scott Graham

ISBN: 9781937226305

Torrey House Press © 2014

Paperback, 228 pages

Amateur Sleuth, #1 National Park mystery

Rating: B+

Source: Purchased at The Poisoned Pen 

Girl With Skirt of Stars by Jennifer Kitchell

Title: Girl With Skirt of Stars
Author: Jennifer Kitchell
ISBN: 9781932636567
Publisher: Pronghorn Press, 2009
Paperback, 348 pages
Genre: Thriller
Rating: A
Source: Purchased at the Singing Wind Bookstore, Benson, Arizona.

First Line: With low tongue and open mouth, the man began soft as a jazzman to pull off the seduction.

Lilli Chischilly became a lawyer in order to protect her people-- the Navajo-- even to testifying before Congress about Colorado River water usage. Happily married, she is disconcerted when her childhood friend, Jerome Bah, moves back to the reservation and makes contact with her, but she's thrown even further off balance when the president of the Navajo Nation insists she joins Senator Lee and his family on a rafting trip through the Grand Canyon.

The Mormon presidential candidate whom many believe will be the next President of the United States has a reason why he wants Lilli along on the trip. One of his campaign promises is to use new technology to wring every last bit of water and power from Mother Nature. He also wants a legal guarantee to be granted to California for the water rights to the Colorado River. (Which means that-- no matter what happens-- California would get its water regardless of anyone else who needs it.)

Thinking Lilli will be a captive audience, Lee intends to make sure she agrees to this legal guarantee. What neither of them know is that Lee has an enemy who's determined to kill him somewhere along the river down in the depths of the Grand Canyon. Furthermore, the enemy's chances of success are excellent since there are only eleven people traveling on the raft.

Kitchell has a very lyrical writing style that has unexpected touches of humor, as when someone claims another character is "so narrow minded he could applaud with his ears."

The raft trip through the Grand Canyon is extremely suspenseful, since the reader knows there's a killer waiting for them somewhere along the route. A secondary plot line that involves Lilli's childhood friend, Jerome Bah, adds tension between Lilli and Jerome as well as serving as a natural springboard for sharing many Navajo customs and stories.

We could learn much from the Navajo. Tony Hillerman knew this, and Jennifer Kitchell, in her beautifully told story, is following in his footsteps.

Life is brief, she thought, tenuous, but it has a point. We are here to create life, and to teach it, and to die old in beauty. "Beauty" did not mean you walked to old age with no illness, or you walked to old age with cosmetically enhanced qualities of the young. It was not about physical attributes. It was about a quality of character.

May all of you walk in beauty.

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