Shadows of Death by David Sundstrand

First Line: This time the dead animals were in human form.

Seth Parker is a self-appointed vigilante. If he catches a person showing cruelty to an animal, that person will pay dearly.  How dearly? Here are three examples:

A man who cut the beaks off pelicans for stealing his fish was found dead and lipless. The owner of a dog fighting ring is found torn to pieces by his own dogs. Two teenage boys who posted a YouTube video showing themselves blowing up cats are missing, and no one expects to find either of them in one piece. This is the sort of work that Seth Parker has become known for, and that's the reason why he's wanted by the FBI.

Frank Flynn is a law enforcement agent for the Bureau of Land Management. As a person who loves the Mojave Desert and the wildlife that can be found there, he has to admit that he sympathizes more with Parker than he should. Flynn reads about what Parker's been doing until Parker moves into the Mojave and kills two poachers for using wild burros as target practice. Now he's on Flynn's turf, and although Flynn seems able to guess Parker's next moves, he can't seem to get ahead of the killer.

Flynn would rather take a beating than provide any sort of protection at the opening of Sand Canyon, an exclusive hunting resort where the well-heeled can use the latest firepower to kill sedated big cats and other wild game, but that's exactly what he's assigned to do. He knows Parker's going to be there with plans to take down as many people as he can. Now all Flynn has to do is stay alive long enough to bring Parker to justice.

If you're a reader who respects the environment and loves wildlife, you can't go wrong by picking up either of David Sundstrand's Desert Sky mysteries, Shadow of the Raven and Shadows of Death. These two books are filled with beautiful descriptions of the desert and its plants and wild creatures.  Frank Flynn has the perfect assignment: protecting the land and the animals that he loves so much, but it's not easy...

"This is where I grew up, and I'm watching it start to die. You know what that's like? People come up here, tear up the land, dump trash, go home, and water their lawns-- with our water." He turned to Linda. "They bring their guns and act like the valley's a shooting gallery. Shoot at anything that moves."

Although he likes and admires his boss and has a good relationship with his girlfriend Linda, he can be very abrasive with people who treat the environment as their own private garbage dump and playground. After dealing with those types, the best thing he can do is spend time in his converted railroad caboose out in a remote corner of the desert.

Sundstrand does an excellent job of portraying the landscape in all its unforgiving beauty and frailty. He also shines a spotlight on a fact that few people give much thought to-- that many areas in the desert Southwest have had their water taken from them so that people in large metropolitan areas like Los Angeles and Phoenix can have their green lawns and swimming pools.

But as good as the writing is about the landscape, it's just as good when it comes to the plot and to how the story unfolds. Frank is dealing with a brilliant, deranged killer on the one hand, and with uncooperative colleagues on the other. When he and Seth Parker meet at Sand Canyon, the action is fast, furious, and bad for the blood pressure-- but oh so good to the last page.

Both books in the Desert Sky series stand alone well, but I recommend reading them both... for the character of Frank Flynn and for the evocative picture Sundstrand paints of the Mojave Desert.

Shadows of Death by David Sundstrand

ISBN: 9781250005427

Minotaur Books © 2009

Paperback, 336 pages

Genre: Environmental Mystery, #2 Desert Sky mystery

Rating: A

Source: Paperback Swap

Shadow of the Raven by David Sundstrand

Title: Shadow of the Raven
Author: David Sundstrand
ISBN: 9780312361358
Publisher: Minotaur Books, 2007
Hardcover, 320 pages
Genre: Environmental mystery, #1 Desert Sky mystery
Rating: B+
Source: Purchased from Bookcloseouts.

First Line: Finding another dead body ruined Frank Flynn's day off.

Frank Flynn is an officer of the Bureau of Land Management on the California side of the Mojave Desert. The son of an immigrant Irish railroad man and a half-Mexican, half-Paiute mother, he lives in the caboose that his father brought out to a remote area when the railroad stopped running there.

Although Frank loves teaching people about the desert, its beauty, and the wildlife that lives there, he could do without the thoughtless souls who tear up the fragile ecosystem with their campers and all-terrain vehicles. Moreover, if you really want to make him angry, bring up the topic of rich hunters who hire poverty-stricken Indians to lead them to protected Bighorn rams. The rams are then shot, and their heads taken to adorn the walls of some fancy den or study.

Frank is no stranger to finding human remains in the desert-- people who have gotten lost, run out of water, and died-- but this time the corpse he finds is different. This man has been murdered, left out in the merciless sun to die. Instead of convincing his colleagues of the man's murder, one of the tracks in the sand that Frank finds provides fodder for a running joke. A day or so later when Frank learns that three bikers are looking for a missing buddy, he's positive the dead man is connected to them.

Since the bikers are gaining a reputation for picking fights and maiming-- even killing-- when it suits them, the BLM agent knows that the chances of other people losing their lives is growing by the hour. Since the other law enforcement agencies aren't paying a bit of attention to him, Frank knows it's up to him to stop these men, and if he finds time to save his bighorn sheep, that will be icing on the cake.

I am no stranger to the Mojave Desert, although my treks have kept me to the Arizona side of this desert. It is a land of harsh and uncompromising beauty as long as you take the time to get out of your vehicle and walk a bit. Perhaps its saving grace is that, to most people, it looks so desolate that most of them never venture off the interstate. Since I have a particular fondness for crime fiction set in desert locales, I was happy when I ran across this book.

 I'd barely begun to read when it became obvious that the author has a love of and an eye for the desert, too:

Emptiness? Vast, uncluttered, rigorously frugal, but never empty. It was full of shapes and colors and the stillness of open places, a land of illusions, a place where cloud shadows moved across a dreamscape of empty lakes whose dry beds miraculously filled with water when the desert gods emptied the sky in dark torrents, washing the rocks and filling the canyons with ephemeral rivers of brown water.

Frank Flynn is a marvelously realized character in both his relationships to people and to the desert. Sundstrand also does an excellent job in depicting how the various law enforcement agencies-- police, the Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the Bureau of Land Management-- don't always agree on how things should be done... or even on who should do them.

For me, the villains and the plot proved to be a bit weak. The bad guys were just the sort of people I love to despise, but they really didn't rise above the two-dimensional. As for the plot, a few things were mentioned in passing that were all too easily guessed as having something to do with the denouement. Although the author switched around the timing of the two plot threads concerning the rich trophy hunter and the bikers, there really weren't any surprises in what happened.

In books where the characterization and setting aren't so rich and detailed, these weaknesses would make a huge difference. In the case of Shadow of the Raven, I can overlook them a bit as I look for the next book in the series. I most definitely want to read more of Frank Flynn and the Mojave Desert.

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