Saguaro Sanction

National Park Mystery #8

by Scott Graham, Joel Richards (Narrator)

7 hours, 2 minutes

Janelle Ortega and Chuck Bender are drawn deep into a threatening web of hostility and deceit in Saguaro National Park in this page-turner of a mystery.

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.

Genres: Mystery, Nature, Fiction

8 pages, Audiobook

Published April 30, 2024

About the author

Scott Graham is author of Canyon Sacrifice: A National Park Mystery and Extreme Kids (winner of the National Outdoor Book Award). He is an avid outdoorsman and amateur archaeologist who enjoys hunting, rock climbing, skiing, backpacking, mountaineering, river rafting, and whitewater kayaking with his wife, an emergency physician, and their two sons. Graham lives in Durango, Colorado.

Reviews

[Abibliofob · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had the honor to get an early copy of Saguaro Sanction by Scott Graham. It's another great national park mystery with Chuck Bender in the lead. Guess where it's set? This time the mystery is not only about the petroglyphs in Saguaro national park it's also about immigrants into America and their struggles. This series is getting better with every book written and I'm glad I stuck with it. I was a little negative at first but I have changed my mind. I am really fond of the way Chucks family play a part in the books. I must thank Edelweiss and Torrey House Press för letting me read this book.

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you, Torrey House press, for sending me a copy of this book. While I enjoyed reading about the petroglyphs, plants, geology, and history, I found the writing itself uninspiring, and I didn’t finish reading the book. None of the characters became real to me, and the storyline was uninteresting and therefore difficult for me to follow. This book did not captivate me like so many other mysteries set in the southwest have done. It did inspire me to go visit that area, though! If that was the aim of the book, I guess it succeeded.

[Sophia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Scott Graham just gets better. I love the characters, the setting of each book, the action as well as the history of the area. Well done!

[Anne - Books of My Heart · Rating 4 out of 5]

This review was originally posted on Books of My Heart
 

Review copy was received from Publisher. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

The  National Park Mystery series continues to improve as it goes along. I still enjoy the park settings, the mysteries, the archeology and the family growth and character development.  These last two installments also have  timely topics which are very relevant.

Chuck and Janelle and the two daughters, Carmelita and Rosie, are much more of a tight family now.   Chuck is an archeologist who does work at National Park sites.  Chuck Bender is in his early 50s in good shape.  Janelle is now nearly finished with a paramedic course.  She is serious about it and does a good job. She is working with Chuck now instead of blaming him. The girls are starting to have teen attitudes though.

The issue in Saguaro Sanction is that of migrants traveling across the border to apply for citizenship or asylum in the United States. Janelle and Clarence's parents have been in the United States many years but her uncle and cousins are still in Mexico.  Chuck has a new project to study petroglyphs which are right along the path migrants take. Indigenous groups put out water because otherwise they end up dealing with the dead.  Migrants are often kidnapped, trafficked or forced to work for the drug cartels.

Chuck and Janelle go out to start the project, but also because they think the teen grandsons may be coming that day.  They arrive and find one of the cousins brutally killed, the other disappeared.  There is another injured migrant who gives them some clues.  Now they must search for the missing cousins and whoever murdered the other.

They face a lot of danger, including the daughters who assist in the searching. Chuck finds some outstanding archeological artifacts.  Eventually, they find the killer since they are attacked as well.

Narration:
I've enjoyed this narrator previously.  The primary voice and thoughts were Chuck and he certainly became Chuck for me. Janelle has more of a voice in these later books.  The other voices were all comfortably appropriate. I was able to listen at my usual 1.5x speed.

[Ryan Zink · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is not my favorite book in the series. Having just gone through the the preceding novels, I felt like the preceding installment was his best of the series, and then this book may have been the most lackluster.

In trying to make each book capable of standing on its own, history about Janelle and the girls is repeated unnecessarily. On the other hand, the novel characters remain undeveloped and flat.

Early into reading (maybe a quarter of the way in) I knew I wasn’t connecting with this installment like I had with the others. That sense continued throughout as I completed the story. It never really got going and while there was a “who dun it” component to the story as expected, at the end I didn’t really care which person committed the crime.

Still filled with interesting history, this book only gets two stars as the story itself is a too simplistic and the characters never really feel real.

[B Howard · Rating 2 out of 5]

A National Park Mystery. Archaeologist and his family find murdered Mexican man. Has YA feel to it but not described as YA. I skimmed through it. The 2 daughters were extremely irritating, especially the younger one. Too many characters and couldn't keep track of them. Story was confusing and I just didn't care for it. I did like the setting in a national park, especially in the Southwest. But I definitely will not read another in this series. Wish I had read the preview instead of buying it. Copyright March 2023.

[C. Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best crime fiction is often about something else--a time, a place, a history, a societal challenge. It's one of the things I love about Scott Graham's series, and Saguaro Sanction does not disappoint. The central murder mystery interweaves the history of Saguaro National Park and the indigenous peoples who once populated the area with the plight of those who cross the southern border, risking death in search of a better life. Yet Graham again avoids didacticism or easy answers, allowing the mystery to unfold naturally. A bold, satisfying read.

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my first time reading anything by Scott Graham and his National Park Mystery Series. It's been on my TBR stack for awhile because the setting, Saguaro National Park is in my home state and I'm quite fond of reading books with ties to Arizona. The Saguaro Sanction is a true mystery. It had me guessing, and guessing wrong, most of the way through which is always a plus. In addition, I learned quite a bit about the ancient history of native peoples in and around my area thanks to the archeological explanations used liberally through out the book. I will definitely be adding other books in the series to my TBR stack!

[J.J. Rusz · Rating 3 out of 5]

An engaging mystery usually requires a number of plausible culprits connected to suspicious activity. Scott Graham’s “Saguaro Sanction,” meets that standard, but the plentiful suspects here are perhaps too undistinguished to move this tale along. There’s a murder and mischief related to southern border issues, but the storyline wanders. What might keep readers engaged are the desert landscapes and Native American rock art that the author describes so well.

[Brenda Roberts · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was well written however it wasn’t for me. If this was truly a young adult book it was a bit to politically motivated for me. ( I was a bit confused about who the protagonist actually was)Also with all the wonders in our National Parks why did the author choose to put in a fictional migrant trail and fictional petroglyphs ? Couldn’t he have found some petroglyphs that are actually in the park to use in his story.

[Richard Becker · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a page-turner, with much good mystery, great characters, a wonderful Arizona setting and much more. I enjoyed learning Native American history and about their petroglyphs I can't wait for the next one.

[James Fortin · Rating 2 out of 5]

These books have been getting three stars because they’re entertaining and about NP but they’re pretty liberal about all the foo foo climate change BS but it’s been tolerable. This one’s about illegal immigrants and of course the author is sympathizing with them *eye roll*

[Kathy Goodman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my favorite of the series. Interesting info about petroglyphs, but flat characters and the mystery seemed pretty far-fetched.

[Devin K · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun light read with enough twists and turns to keep you interested.

[Paul Parkinson]

Just a little too YA for me, thought it's not a YA book. Same with the Rocky Mt Park one

[Marion · Rating 4 out of 5]

National Park Mystery #8. All about petroglyphs and immigration, with a few murders too.

[Dana · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars.

[Monica · Rating 2 out of 5]

So many characters to keep track of - could have been told with far fewer

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

I grew up in Tucson and have long been in love with the Sonoran Desert... spending weeks near the saguaro national park in recent years. I appreciated the perspective given related to immigration issues- even the somewhat exaggerated and hard to believe culmination of recent intolerant attitudes. I learned about rock art complexities and prehistoric evidence of giant sloths, which I was not aware of. While I find the motivation of some of this author's characters incredulous I keep coming back to this series for the national park settings and in depth treatment of complex conflicts.

[Sharon Mensing · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scott Graham's National Park series is always a combination of thriller, archaeology, and social or environmental advocacy. Sometimes the balance is skewed one way or another, but in SAGUARO SANCTION, Graham evenly distributes the focus. The book deals with illegal immigration across the Arizona border and ancient Hohokam culture as Chuck Bender and his family are imperiled while they search for a young family member in the harsh expanse of the Sonoran Desert.

Chuck, a renowned archaeologist working mainly in the southwestern United States, has been hired to search out, interpret, and catalog petroglyphs in the part of the Sonoran Desert that lies within the boundaries of the Saguaro National Park outside of Tucson, Arizona. Knowing that she and her two girls will be with him, his wife, Janelle, arranges for the family to meet underage cousins who want to cross the border to find asylum in the US. When Chuck and his family reach their designated meeting place, they find one murdered boy, one on the verge of death, and another missing. Because of Chuck's archaeological contract, this event brings together his family, a diverse research team, and law enforcement agents. With their relationship to the boys undisclosed, Chuck and his family search for the missing boy while someone attempts to end that search through any means possible. No one can be trusted, and we don't find out who the murderer is until the suspenseful conclusion to the novel.

As they move through the desert searching for the missing boy, Chuck and his eldest daughter, Carmelita, come across petroglyphs that will change what is known and understood about the Hohokam people who lived in the area about a thousand years ago. These artifacts tie Hohokam and Mayan history together, and it is this link which leads to a partial understanding of the book's conclusion. At the same time, Janelle and her youngest daughter, Rosie, searching in another area, face danger from those involved in human trafficking. Graham deftly brings the modern and historical together to make for not only a suspenseful ending, but also one that makes sense.

A very great deal of historical information is imparted as Chuck and Carmelita conduct their search, and Janelle and Rosie's search is accompanied by many pages of information about the dangers facing illegal immigrants on their quest for asylum. Both threads are interesting, adding to the reader's knowledge base. However, Graham could have done a better job of incorporating the information into the plot rather than imparting it as a sort of aside. Characterization is consistent, if somewhat sketchy for the minor players. The writing brings the desert to life, both in its beauty and its dangers. SAGUARO SANCTION is a short, fast-paced book that transports the reader into the southern Arizona desert for a few hours. It's a trip well worth taking.

This review first appeared at reviewingtheevidence.com.

[Stephen Morefield · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just ok. Jumped into the series to read this one before a trip to the National Park. Good description of park and it's surrounding world but the story is a bit clunky and feels excessively politically correct and preachy. Most likely won't read anything else in the series.