The second novel featuring ranger Dee LaGuerre, following Edgar Award finalist HIGH DESERT MALICE. Dee finds herself in the middle of California’s water wars, when aquaducts carrying water away from Owens Valley to Los Angeles are suddenly being blown up, causing death and massive destruction. Generations-old resentments against the government -- for allowing Los Angeles to divert water from the once-fertile farmlands -- surface, and it takes all of Dee’s ingenuity and daring to determine who the people are behind the ever-escalating violence. Kirk Mitchell is a starred-review writer and a veteran law enforcement officer in both desert and urban counties of California.
"In his two electrifying mysteries, HIGH DESERT MALICE and DEEP VALLEY MALICE, Kirk Mitchell introduces us to a range heroine for our times… And like any good mystery writer, he holds up a mirror and illuminates the region's dark shadows." - Great Basin News
“If Mr. Mitchell was as good a policeman as he is a writer, there must not have been a criminal standing when he retired.” - The Washington Times
Kirk Mitchell is an author who is known for his time travel, alternate history, historical fiction, and adventure fiction novels. Mitchell has also created several novelizations of movies.He writes under the pseudonym of Joel Norst
Kirk Mitchell served as a deputy sheriff on the Paiute- Shoshone Indian reservations of the desert country that includes Death Valley, and was a SWAT sergeant in southern California, before beginning his career as a full-time writer.
This brings up memories of the struggle that the Owens Valley people had when LA came looking for water in the early 1900's. It was a very difficult time and the loss of a beautiful and fruitful valley.
I have really enjoyed these early books by Kirk Mitchell. I find the character, Dee Lagurre, to be very enjoyable and "real." I find myself thinking about the characters and stories long after having read the books.