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Allison Coil Mystery #1
Antler Dust
With laudibly unsentimental prose and sure command of character, Antler Dust takes us on a dark hunting trip throught the snowy Rockies. Pitting a tough but vulnerable heroine against a killer out to bag more than elk, Mark Stevens gives new meaning to the term 'trophy kill'.
287 pages, Hardcover
First published January 23, 2007
263 people are currently reading
711 people want to read
About the author
Mark Stevens
7 books200 followers"No Lie Lasts Forever" was published by Thomas & Mercer in June, 2025. A sequel is due in 2026.
Lake Union published "The Fireballer" in 2023. It was my first non-mystery. It's about a pitcher for The Baltimore Orioles.
My previous five books are all part of The Allison Coil Mystery Series, set in the Flat Tops Wilderness in Colorado.
Number one, "Antler Dust," was published in 2007 and made the best-seller list on The Denver Post. The sequel, "Buried by the Roan," was published in 2011.
The third, "Trapline," came out in 2014 and won the Colorado Book Award. "Lake of Fire," number four, was published in 2015 and was a finalist for the Colorado Book Award. Kirkus Review called that book "irresistible."
"The Melancholy Howl" (No. 5) was published in 2018. Kirkus Reviews called it "smart and indelible."
I’ve worked as a reporter for The Christian Science Monitor in Boston and Los Angeles, covering a variety of events and issues from the economy, commercial fishing, the environment, politics and all the colorful people and events of southern California.
I've worked for The Rocky Mountain News and Denver Post, also with the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. For six years, I produced field documentaries across the United States and Latin America.
Lake Union published "The Fireballer" in 2023. It was my first non-mystery. It's about a pitcher for The Baltimore Orioles.
My previous five books are all part of The Allison Coil Mystery Series, set in the Flat Tops Wilderness in Colorado.
Number one, "Antler Dust," was published in 2007 and made the best-seller list on The Denver Post. The sequel, "Buried by the Roan," was published in 2011.
The third, "Trapline," came out in 2014 and won the Colorado Book Award. "Lake of Fire," number four, was published in 2015 and was a finalist for the Colorado Book Award. Kirkus Review called that book "irresistible."
"The Melancholy Howl" (No. 5) was published in 2018. Kirkus Reviews called it "smart and indelible."
I’ve worked as a reporter for The Christian Science Monitor in Boston and Los Angeles, covering a variety of events and issues from the economy, commercial fishing, the environment, politics and all the colorful people and events of southern California.
I've worked for The Rocky Mountain News and Denver Post, also with the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. For six years, I produced field documentaries across the United States and Latin America.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 79 reviews
April 9, 2012
Still slumming in the world of pulp fiction.
I kid, of course. Nothing wrong with pulp fiction, although this is a divergence of subject for me, never having been interested in mystery/suspense.
What attracted me to this book was the setting. You see, I was a hunting guide in the Flattop Wilderness where this story takes place, and worked at the Ripple Creek lodge. In fact, my experiences there and working for other hunting lodges inspired me to write a couple novels of my own set in this environment (multiple drafts, sitting in a box now, good practice). So I was excited when I read the first couple pages in the bookstore and quickly downloaded it to my ipad.
My excitement started to fade as I progressed, noticing little details that led me to believe that Mark Stevens was drawing on minimal exposure to the world of guiding and outfitting. For instance, the part in the beginning about hauling water from the creek to wash out the elk carcass during dressing and quartering; i've dressed, quartered and packed dozens of elk out of the backcountry and this is a technic i've never seen (its a lot of work) nor found necessary as it will occur during processing. Also, the character of David Slater, Allisons love interest. Slater is a Forest Service law enforcement officer (federal), but he acts in the story much like a Division of Wildlife officer (state); two different things, both with who Im familiar and i've never seen a Forest Service Ranger so involved in wildlife crime investigation. In fact, i've never encountered one in the field during hunting season and Im out there every Fall. Then there was the more than occasional reference to the dangers posed by wildlife like bears and mountain lions; totally overplayed. On the rarest of occasions these animals become a threat to humans, but in over thirty years of traveling the wilderness, alone, i've never had a negative encounter with bears or lions, and they cause me no anxiety. This sounds knit picky perhaps, but these details, along with others, compromised my suspension of disbelief.
The locations appear to be somewhat subverted, using names of real places but not correlating with what I know to be the real geography. Thats alright, its fiction after all, but it cooled my personal enthusiasm.
Along with these details was Stevens writing of Allison Coil herself. It read like a man writing a woman, particularly when it came to her attraction to men, reading like what men would hope women are thinking. Of course I don't know (what women really think about us in their private thoughts), but I couldn't buy it here.
Finally, I saw the end coming early; totally predictable and pat.
I was mildly entertained, and Stevens did a very nice job of presenting the landscape and scenery; it was easy to visualize the panorama being described, and the environment Im familiar with was accurately conveyed.
This one was almost satisfying, but did fall short. Currently stalled in the second Allison Coil book; not sure if i'll be compelled to finish it.
Of course, what do I know?
I kid, of course. Nothing wrong with pulp fiction, although this is a divergence of subject for me, never having been interested in mystery/suspense.
What attracted me to this book was the setting. You see, I was a hunting guide in the Flattop Wilderness where this story takes place, and worked at the Ripple Creek lodge. In fact, my experiences there and working for other hunting lodges inspired me to write a couple novels of my own set in this environment (multiple drafts, sitting in a box now, good practice). So I was excited when I read the first couple pages in the bookstore and quickly downloaded it to my ipad.
My excitement started to fade as I progressed, noticing little details that led me to believe that Mark Stevens was drawing on minimal exposure to the world of guiding and outfitting. For instance, the part in the beginning about hauling water from the creek to wash out the elk carcass during dressing and quartering; i've dressed, quartered and packed dozens of elk out of the backcountry and this is a technic i've never seen (its a lot of work) nor found necessary as it will occur during processing. Also, the character of David Slater, Allisons love interest. Slater is a Forest Service law enforcement officer (federal), but he acts in the story much like a Division of Wildlife officer (state); two different things, both with who Im familiar and i've never seen a Forest Service Ranger so involved in wildlife crime investigation. In fact, i've never encountered one in the field during hunting season and Im out there every Fall. Then there was the more than occasional reference to the dangers posed by wildlife like bears and mountain lions; totally overplayed. On the rarest of occasions these animals become a threat to humans, but in over thirty years of traveling the wilderness, alone, i've never had a negative encounter with bears or lions, and they cause me no anxiety. This sounds knit picky perhaps, but these details, along with others, compromised my suspension of disbelief.
The locations appear to be somewhat subverted, using names of real places but not correlating with what I know to be the real geography. Thats alright, its fiction after all, but it cooled my personal enthusiasm.
Along with these details was Stevens writing of Allison Coil herself. It read like a man writing a woman, particularly when it came to her attraction to men, reading like what men would hope women are thinking. Of course I don't know (what women really think about us in their private thoughts), but I couldn't buy it here.
Finally, I saw the end coming early; totally predictable and pat.
I was mildly entertained, and Stevens did a very nice job of presenting the landscape and scenery; it was easy to visualize the panorama being described, and the environment Im familiar with was accurately conveyed.
This one was almost satisfying, but did fall short. Currently stalled in the second Allison Coil book; not sure if i'll be compelled to finish it.
Of course, what do I know?
January 1, 2020
Loved the main character and thoroughly enjoyed the mystery. Super satisfying ending.
October 20, 2014
After reading Antler Dust, I'm hooked on the Allison Coil series by Mark Stevens. Stevens raises the mystery to high literary art with his stunning prose and unforgettable characters. Although we learn early on who committed each of two murders, the novel progressively deepens in psychological complexity. Motives, ethics, personalities, and agendas intertwine against the vivid backdrop of the Colorado Flat Tops wilderness. Hunting guide Allison Coil guides the reader through the twists of the plot, from crime and animal rights to the contradictions of the New West, until they unravel in surprising ways. The writing is superb, as with Allison's observation about a coming snowstorm that "the air smelled like it was gaining weight." And her insight that "Death, she had learned, is simply a corpse you carry around underneath your skin. Until one day it pops free." A great read, highly recommended.
April 13, 2017
**2.5 stars**
Author Mark Stevens is a great person. I hold Mr. Stevens in high esteem, and I really wanted to enjoy his debut novel, the first book in his Allison Coil Mystery Series.
But this book is a mess. Full of factual errors and mwa-ha-ha villains hiding in plain sight, villains who suddenly "snap" by the end of the story, start killing people right and left, and one even delivers a long "villain manifesto" before the coup de grâce, which allows the hero the necessary lapse in action for victory.
Every character in this novel is foolish to the point of absurdity. The story is loosely centered on Allison Coil, a self-professed "city girl" turned "hunting guide" who has actually never shot an animal. She simply helps newbie hunters learn how to butcher deer and elk, a skill she learned after surviving a plane crash and moving to Colorado.
This is how Allison deals with "a massive bull elk" on page 7, as she teaches the newbie hunters how to butcher their first kill. After emptying "the viscera from the elk's cavity," Allison engages in the following activities --
"She helped fill water jugs in the nearby creek. They washed out the carcass and cut off the legs. She showed Vic how to scalp the antlers and leave enough of the nubs to show evidence that the kill was male, in case the boy-men were stopped on the way home by a forest ranger." After Allison packed the meat back to camp, and hung the meat in a tree, "Allison peppered the meat to discourage flies."
To anyone who has ever hunted elk in Colorado, these details are absurd.
First, what newbie hunter is going to eat bull meat like that? Gross. The meat is loaded with hormones that make that meat repulsive. (On a personal note: my husband's friend once tried to feed bull meat to his dog, and the dog vomited and later suffered horrendous diarrhea. The dog wasn't the only one who suffered, since the man also tried cooking a slice of that meat in his home, and the smell made him throw up. My husband didn't vomit because he has guts of steel, but his friend sure puked quite a lot. Suffice to say, eating bull meat in season is not something most people would ever do.) Bulls in rut are not what hunters eat, it's the cow meat (cow elk meat) they butcher and take home.
Second, what hunter washes a carcass out with water?? No one. No one ever washes out a carcass being field dressed. Hunters carve up the animal and pack the meat to camp. Dumping bagfuls of water all over a fresh kill is absurd.
Third, there is no need to leave "nubs" behind to prove a kill is male. If antlers are cut off a skull, it's obvious to anyone looking at the skull that the antlers were removed.
Fourth, elk season takes place in late autumn/early winter, once the flies are all dead. No Colorado hunter in the Rocky Mountains ever "peppers" their elk meat to keep it safe from flies. In fact, right after Allison "peppers" the meat and leaves camp, she is caught in a heavy snowstorm, and over a foot of fresh powder accumulates on the ground. Flies aren't swarming around in weather like that.
With a butcher scene like that, the only thing Allison is showing me in this story is that she is a fool and a clown, not a hunting guide. She never felt like a believable character, and the novel never gave me enough information about her to ever convince me she was anything more than a fictional caricature of a woman.
Other point of view characters in this story include: two different killers, the wife of one of the killers, a super-ditzy animal rights activist who is as unrealistic as she is unsympathetic, and other head-hopping point of view characters too numerous to mention. Suffice to say, all of this head-hopping point of view material meant Allison Coil was never fully developed as a character, due to all of the time the reader spends with secondary characters who have no impact whatsoever on the main plot.
None of the characters felt like real people to me, the prose is melodramatic, heavy-handed, and clumsy. Important character development information is crammed into scenes where the material disrupts the flow of the story, making the entire book seem more unrealistic and dull. During one action sequence late in the book, Allison Coil is running for her life, and ends up having a long rumination over the plane crash she survived prior to becoming a hunting guide.
Her memories and conclusions about surviving this crash are interrupted when her horse is shot out from under her, and the animal quickly dies. The shooter escapes unidentified, and Allison walks away to find help. She expresses such little emotion over this tragedy -- and there is no real aftermath concerning what is to be done with the horse's body, or where the horse will be buried, since Allison quickly moves on to other plot details, never truly returning to this horror of her HORSE being GUNNED down and killed for NO REASON -- this single scene encapsulated everything that made this novel unreal.
The horse is the only person or animal killed in this story that I felt any emotion over -- but Allison had as much reaction to this death as she would to stubbing her toe on a rock.
I carefully read the first 150 pages of this novel, and then I had to skim to reach the end of this book. The "villain manifesto" at the end, packed with information Allison had never encountered before in the story, felt especially cliché and unbelievable. Given how clunky and unreal the rest of the book felt to read, I should have expected this manifesto, but I still felt aggravated by the "big reveal" in the final action scene of the book.
For fans of author C.J. Box and his Joe Pickett series, the debut of Allison Coil is no "Open Season." I doubt author Mark Stevens has ever gone elk hunting before, or spent any time at camp with elk hunting guides. I wish Mr. Stevens had done a lot more research, and had some experience in the field, before publishing this book. "Antler Dust" is set west of Denver, in the Rocky Mountains, but the entire story reads like a tourist penned the tale, not like anything a lifelong resident of the Rocky Mountains would write.
I would not recommend this book to anyone familiar with hunting in the west. But for people who enjoy clichéd stories and mwa-ha-ha villains, "Antler Dust" is a murder mystery you will enjoy.
Author Mark Stevens is a great person. I hold Mr. Stevens in high esteem, and I really wanted to enjoy his debut novel, the first book in his Allison Coil Mystery Series.
But this book is a mess. Full of factual errors and mwa-ha-ha villains hiding in plain sight, villains who suddenly "snap" by the end of the story, start killing people right and left, and one even delivers a long "villain manifesto" before the coup de grâce, which allows the hero the necessary lapse in action for victory.
Every character in this novel is foolish to the point of absurdity. The story is loosely centered on Allison Coil, a self-professed "city girl" turned "hunting guide" who has actually never shot an animal. She simply helps newbie hunters learn how to butcher deer and elk, a skill she learned after surviving a plane crash and moving to Colorado.
This is how Allison deals with "a massive bull elk" on page 7, as she teaches the newbie hunters how to butcher their first kill. After emptying "the viscera from the elk's cavity," Allison engages in the following activities --
"She helped fill water jugs in the nearby creek. They washed out the carcass and cut off the legs. She showed Vic how to scalp the antlers and leave enough of the nubs to show evidence that the kill was male, in case the boy-men were stopped on the way home by a forest ranger." After Allison packed the meat back to camp, and hung the meat in a tree, "Allison peppered the meat to discourage flies."
To anyone who has ever hunted elk in Colorado, these details are absurd.
First, what newbie hunter is going to eat bull meat like that? Gross. The meat is loaded with hormones that make that meat repulsive. (On a personal note: my husband's friend once tried to feed bull meat to his dog, and the dog vomited and later suffered horrendous diarrhea. The dog wasn't the only one who suffered, since the man also tried cooking a slice of that meat in his home, and the smell made him throw up. My husband didn't vomit because he has guts of steel, but his friend sure puked quite a lot. Suffice to say, eating bull meat in season is not something most people would ever do.) Bulls in rut are not what hunters eat, it's the cow meat (cow elk meat) they butcher and take home.
Second, what hunter washes a carcass out with water?? No one. No one ever washes out a carcass being field dressed. Hunters carve up the animal and pack the meat to camp. Dumping bagfuls of water all over a fresh kill is absurd.
Third, there is no need to leave "nubs" behind to prove a kill is male. If antlers are cut off a skull, it's obvious to anyone looking at the skull that the antlers were removed.
Fourth, elk season takes place in late autumn/early winter, once the flies are all dead. No Colorado hunter in the Rocky Mountains ever "peppers" their elk meat to keep it safe from flies. In fact, right after Allison "peppers" the meat and leaves camp, she is caught in a heavy snowstorm, and over a foot of fresh powder accumulates on the ground. Flies aren't swarming around in weather like that.
With a butcher scene like that, the only thing Allison is showing me in this story is that she is a fool and a clown, not a hunting guide. She never felt like a believable character, and the novel never gave me enough information about her to ever convince me she was anything more than a fictional caricature of a woman.
Other point of view characters in this story include: two different killers, the wife of one of the killers, a super-ditzy animal rights activist who is as unrealistic as she is unsympathetic, and other head-hopping point of view characters too numerous to mention. Suffice to say, all of this head-hopping point of view material meant Allison Coil was never fully developed as a character, due to all of the time the reader spends with secondary characters who have no impact whatsoever on the main plot.
None of the characters felt like real people to me, the prose is melodramatic, heavy-handed, and clumsy. Important character development information is crammed into scenes where the material disrupts the flow of the story, making the entire book seem more unrealistic and dull. During one action sequence late in the book, Allison Coil is running for her life, and ends up having a long rumination over the plane crash she survived prior to becoming a hunting guide.
Her memories and conclusions about surviving this crash are interrupted when her horse is shot out from under her, and the animal quickly dies. The shooter escapes unidentified, and Allison walks away to find help. She expresses such little emotion over this tragedy -- and there is no real aftermath concerning what is to be done with the horse's body, or where the horse will be buried, since Allison quickly moves on to other plot details, never truly returning to this horror of her HORSE being GUNNED down and killed for NO REASON -- this single scene encapsulated everything that made this novel unreal.
The horse is the only person or animal killed in this story that I felt any emotion over -- but Allison had as much reaction to this death as she would to stubbing her toe on a rock.
I carefully read the first 150 pages of this novel, and then I had to skim to reach the end of this book. The "villain manifesto" at the end, packed with information Allison had never encountered before in the story, felt especially cliché and unbelievable. Given how clunky and unreal the rest of the book felt to read, I should have expected this manifesto, but I still felt aggravated by the "big reveal" in the final action scene of the book.
For fans of author C.J. Box and his Joe Pickett series, the debut of Allison Coil is no "Open Season." I doubt author Mark Stevens has ever gone elk hunting before, or spent any time at camp with elk hunting guides. I wish Mr. Stevens had done a lot more research, and had some experience in the field, before publishing this book. "Antler Dust" is set west of Denver, in the Rocky Mountains, but the entire story reads like a tourist penned the tale, not like anything a lifelong resident of the Rocky Mountains would write.
I would not recommend this book to anyone familiar with hunting in the west. But for people who enjoy clichéd stories and mwa-ha-ha villains, "Antler Dust" is a murder mystery you will enjoy.
June 19, 2016
I loved this book set in the mountains of Colorado. The setting is vivid, fresh, and well-researched. I felt like I was there. Allison Coil, the hunting guide turned amatuer slueth, is someone I want to spend more time with. She's smart, strong, competent, and thriving in a man's world despite the sexism, which is wonderfully captured by author Mark Stevens. I listened to this on audiobooks and the narration was fantastic. I will definitely be reading more Allison Coil mysteries.
December 24, 2022
What moves like a juggernaut over one of the most beautiful landscapes in the world and features a heroine for the ages? Antler Dust, the first Allison Coil mystery. This book has everything I love. A must-read plot with more twists and turns than a corkscrew. Numerous compelling characters who by thoughts and deeds stake out their place on the human spectrum from good to evil. Diabolical abuse of the wilderness and some of the most majestic creatures in it. Murder, of course. Perhaps more than one. And justice; plain, simple, alas painful, but ultimately so satisfying. A great debut. I am looking forward to reading about Allison’s continued exploits on Colorado’s Western Slope!
November 27, 2012
Mark Stevens is not a native of Colorado, but this does not stop him from setting a mystery series there. Like all good authors, he makes being an “outsider” into an asset. His main character, Allison Coil, is an outsider with a past who goes West to paste together the fractured pieces of her life. She is the survivor of an airplane crash, but she does not delude herself with feelings of invincibility, nor does she feel inoculated against bad luck. She is still fearful, and her nightmares come at all times of day and night.
Big sky country is always an appealing choice of subject, for it carries its own romance and mystery, but at the center of this novel is a conflict over hunting rights. An anti-hunting group called FATE protests the kills made possible by trail and hunting guides who bring in paying clients to learn their deadly arts on beasts in the wild. A protester is shot, but there is more: a hunting guide is missing and everyone feels the danger and confusion of the search for someone wielding a lethal weapon.
I was disposed to like this novel, but this felt like a rocky start that needed further polishing, editing, and tightening before being released. As the start of a series, one has to make sure readers want to move on to read more, so arguably this was the most important book of all and deserves all the time required to get it right. I never really had much stake in Allison Coil, and never felt as though I’d gotten to know her or like her enough to follow her through a series. I didn’t like any of the other characters either, for they had large and glaring flaws that were meant to give us some pause. We all know that in the West, they “grow ‘em bigger” but these flaws seemed like caricatures.
There was too much going on. At one point I was less wrapped up in the mysteries unfolding in the story as I was interested to see how the author was going to manage to pull all the threads together at the end. He does, but it was barely foreshadowed and felt rather like cheating. I prefer my mysteries with more complex ethical dilemmas than merely greed for money (ho-hum). I prefer deeply thoughtful and daring psychological insights into the minds of people facing even ordinary dilemmas.
Mark Stevens has the goods to write a series that will walk, but there is much more work to do to get it just right.
Big sky country is always an appealing choice of subject, for it carries its own romance and mystery, but at the center of this novel is a conflict over hunting rights. An anti-hunting group called FATE protests the kills made possible by trail and hunting guides who bring in paying clients to learn their deadly arts on beasts in the wild. A protester is shot, but there is more: a hunting guide is missing and everyone feels the danger and confusion of the search for someone wielding a lethal weapon.
I was disposed to like this novel, but this felt like a rocky start that needed further polishing, editing, and tightening before being released. As the start of a series, one has to make sure readers want to move on to read more, so arguably this was the most important book of all and deserves all the time required to get it right. I never really had much stake in Allison Coil, and never felt as though I’d gotten to know her or like her enough to follow her through a series. I didn’t like any of the other characters either, for they had large and glaring flaws that were meant to give us some pause. We all know that in the West, they “grow ‘em bigger” but these flaws seemed like caricatures.
There was too much going on. At one point I was less wrapped up in the mysteries unfolding in the story as I was interested to see how the author was going to manage to pull all the threads together at the end. He does, but it was barely foreshadowed and felt rather like cheating. I prefer my mysteries with more complex ethical dilemmas than merely greed for money (ho-hum). I prefer deeply thoughtful and daring psychological insights into the minds of people facing even ordinary dilemmas.
Mark Stevens has the goods to write a series that will walk, but there is much more work to do to get it just right.
July 28, 2013
I'm not sure I'm the best person to write a review of this book. It's a whole bunch of things that I don't normally read, don't always enjoy, and can't judge objectively. It's a mystery, and mysteries are really not my genre. I'm not in it for the puzzle. I tend to just drift along until the culprit is unmasked, never particularly engaged. It's also a bit of a Western, again not really my genre. It's all backcountry guides, forest rangers, horseback riding, and hunting. The Westerns I've enjoyed have all had a strong historical story, and as a contemporary mystery that wasn't present here. So this book was a mixture of a bunch of things that don't normally interest me, so while I worked my way through the book and have no specific criticism, I also don't have much in the way of praise. But I'm not the audience, so that's okay.
Why, you might ask, did I read it if it's so many things that aren't my style? Two reasons, really. Firstly, I'm a readers' advisor by profession. It does me good to try new things and look for their appeal. It broadens my horizons. This book, for example, has a strong sense of place, lots of details about backcountry hunting, and a main character who is strong, independent, has a stubborn sense of honor, and is somewhat damaged. She's the next thing to a loner hero, and I think that could hold a lot of appeal to the right reader. (I'm also fascinated by Mark Stevens' decision to write a hunting mystery from the perspective of a female main character. It's not a bad thing, by any stretch, but I'd like to know what thought process led to it. It doesn't seem like an obvious choice to me. Which is, perhaps, what makes it interesting...) Secondly, I'm reading this book for work. Libraries often host authors for talks and signings, and I like to be at least passingly familiar with their books Especially when they're award-nominated local authors! I can't wait for the event, and I think Mark Stevens could attract the attention of our outdoorsy patrons!
Why, you might ask, did I read it if it's so many things that aren't my style? Two reasons, really. Firstly, I'm a readers' advisor by profession. It does me good to try new things and look for their appeal. It broadens my horizons. This book, for example, has a strong sense of place, lots of details about backcountry hunting, and a main character who is strong, independent, has a stubborn sense of honor, and is somewhat damaged. She's the next thing to a loner hero, and I think that could hold a lot of appeal to the right reader. (I'm also fascinated by Mark Stevens' decision to write a hunting mystery from the perspective of a female main character. It's not a bad thing, by any stretch, but I'd like to know what thought process led to it. It doesn't seem like an obvious choice to me. Which is, perhaps, what makes it interesting...) Secondly, I'm reading this book for work. Libraries often host authors for talks and signings, and I like to be at least passingly familiar with their books Especially when they're award-nominated local authors! I can't wait for the event, and I think Mark Stevens could attract the attention of our outdoorsy patrons!
February 4, 2012
This was a fine debut novel. Well paced, a good cast of the motley folks you find in a mountain community, and I loved the Colorado landscape details. (OK, I would have liked even more!) Alison Coil, city girl turned mountain guide after a close brush with death, was an interesting sleuth. When an eco-protester is tragically shot by a distracted hunter, Alison sets out to investigate an incident she witnessed at about the same time - a piece out of place in a puzzle everyone else seems to think is simple. I like the motivation. She's like a pup worrying a bone. She is bold and resourceful (but from time to time she takes actions that don't quite make sense.) We know from the first who the villains are and spend some time in their points of view, so it's not quite an "Alison Coil" mystery, as labeled. But my objections are mild and I'm guess this author will clean up those murky details in the next book. Looking forward to it.
September 25, 2015
The first book in the author's Allison Coil mystery series introduces his protagonist. She's a guide for a hunting outfitter, and a plane crash survivor. She's smart, savvy, and generally likable, and definitely displays a strong work ethic. Her interest in men while she was in a semi-committed relationship raised some interesting questions for me. Do we have a double standard when it comes to the sex lives of characters? In John Sandford's books, Virgil Flowers is an admitted horndog and it's generally accepted as part of his character. Would Allison's interest in men be more acceptable if she wasn't already in a relationship?
That notwithstanding, the mystery was well crafted with interesting characters. There were some places where the author might have made his POV characters clearer when he shifted scenes, and a few errors one wishes an editor would have caught, but overall, it was a read good enough to make me want to read the next book.
That notwithstanding, the mystery was well crafted with interesting characters. There were some places where the author might have made his POV characters clearer when he shifted scenes, and a few errors one wishes an editor would have caught, but overall, it was a read good enough to make me want to read the next book.
August 8, 2016
I really enjoyed this fast paced murder mystery. The amateur sleuth is a female hunting guide who has turned her back on the hectic pace of a city job. The dialogue was a nice change from some of the smart-aleck exchanges found in other books and Allison Coil solves the murders through clever observation and following her own curiosity. Of course, there is the dismissive attitude of the authorities when she keeps providing updates and her boyfriend who is less than fully supportive to provide the dramatic tension. Add to that the character of the likely perpetrator who is a loudmouth type who expects everyone to jump on his say so and does what he can to prevent our heroine from ferreting out the truth.
November 17, 2011
Needed something to kick off being done with the "Game of Thrones" book #5.... and this just did not do it for me. Predictable.... shallow.... and most annoyingly.... about hunters but I don't think this author has ever hunted, been around the "gun culture" (one of his main guys showed up to threaten his wife with an UNloaded gun.... no one that means business and routinely handles guns "pretends" to threaten anyone with an UNloaded gun... WTH??), dressed out a carcass or spent much time in the woods. DISAPPOINTING!
January 11, 2016
Good book, terrible editing
I thought this was a very interesting book. It had a lot of unexpected twists and turns that kept me guessing. Unfortunately the editing was horrible. Or if it wasn't the editing, the "printing" was disastrous!
I thought this was a very interesting book. It had a lot of unexpected twists and turns that kept me guessing. Unfortunately the editing was horrible. Or if it wasn't the editing, the "printing" was disastrous!
Read
January 16, 2016Not the sort of thing I would usually read but really fantastic.
October 3, 2017
Good read
A good read messed up by too much detail on intimate moments. Lots of cuss words and lots of beautifully described scenery.
A good read messed up by too much detail on intimate moments. Lots of cuss words and lots of beautifully described scenery.
March 12, 2012
The premise of Antler Dust, Colorado resident Mark Stevens’ first novel, is enticing. It’s about Allison Coil, a female hunting guide working the big elk hunts in the Colorado Flat Tops Wilderness and two killings—of humans—on the opening day of hunting season. One death involves the “creative suicide” of Ray Stern, an animal rights activist with the group FATE—Fighting Animal Torture Everywhere. The second killing involves another guide. It’s not a whodunit. We know who did the deeds. It’s more about Allison, since she saw something, and her private investigations beyond what the police are doing. They seem preoccupied with PR issues.
There are a cast of characters—outfitter and pilot, George Crumley, who caters to fat-cat hunters that fly in on their private jets. George insures trophy winning results. His wife, Trudy, has a medical condition causing occasional seizures, which requires someone to baby-sit her all the time. George is happy to provide a constant guard. One of them gets a little too close to Trudy. Allison, who works for a competing outfitter, and Trudy become friends and both play important roles in the story's ultimate outcome. Dawn Ellenburg is the head crusader of FATE and is going to milk the public relations benefit of the killing of one of her group for all its worth. She gets national coverage. Dean Applegate is the newly converted hunter-guide who now sees the error of his ways, joins FATE, and makes speeches—a dream fulfilled for Ellenburg. Then there is Slater, Allison’s Forest Ranger boyfriend, seemingly a nice guy.
Allison is a likable protagonist. She’s smart, capable and courageous, but not so perfect that she strains credulity. How did she get into such a business? She was a survivor of a commercial jet airplane crash into Long Island Sound. After that life defining moment, she dropped out of her previous corporate-city existence and was fortunate enough to get hired by Weaver, an outfitter of integrity. She learned on the job.
About Allison, early in the book:
A group of animal rights protesters had set up tents at the base of the mountain that morning. She had not given much thought to them until now. She imagined that most of them were like the men she had left back at the hunter’s camp, city dwellers out on a lark. But with the coming snowstorm, they just might learn the hard way that Mother Nature was indifferent to the rights of everyone and everything on this planet. You might as well protest earthquakes, fires, floods, and falling airplanes.
Allison—a rational realist. Perhaps that’s why I liked her from the beginning.
Later, contemplating the airplane crash:
Two years now in the mountains, and she was beginning—barely beginning— to consider that notion that she had, in fact, been lucky. Another few seconds further down that runway and the drop would have been an exponentially greater slam to reality. A few seconds more and 31 dead could have been 119 dead....Death, she had learned, is simply a corpse you carry around underneath your skin. Until one day it pops free.
The narrator in Allison’s head...about Slater while in conversation with him:
Coil with a cop-like guy? The idea was a constant source of amusement. It wasn’t necessarily forever, but nothing yet made her think that would be unbearable. He didn’t seem to have the typical government mentality. Also, he was strong and straightforward. Coil had never before been with a man who could be classified in the “straightforward” category. Slater was a trim six-footer with an engaging face, dark eyes over a slender nose....Coil liked the way he moved and talked, all careful and in control, but he could flip over to relaxation mode without much effort.
And later, more on Slater:
The last full-fledged boyfriend she’d had, after the airplane accident, was hung up on every mystical song Van Morrison had ever sung. He was a mental drifter, a searcher, who calculated the price of belonging to every structure or organization as some sort of personal sacrifice.
Not Slater. He was somebody who saw his place, or at least knew how to pretend he did. As a result, the picture of comfort and suggestion of stability was strangely inviting.
I chuckled at that bit because while I'm am not a drifter—mental or otherwise—I tend to agree that "the price of belonging to every structure or organization as some sort of personal sacrifice." And I learned how to "pretend" in the corporate world. Another significant conversation with Slater:
"Indoctrination. That’s the city life too. It wears you down. Conform or else,” said Coil.
“Really? I thought the city was where all the weird folks could hide, do their own thing. I thought non-conformity was the point and why people liked living in the city to watch it all go down.”
“Conformity at the corporate level, I suppose, said Coil. “Wear certain suits, read certain books, hang out in just the right places, say just the right things.”
“Well, you fit in here, too,” said Slater. “Half the folks in the mountains out here are runners, anyway.”
“I didn’t run from anything.”
“No?”
“I just needed trees and sky. And I knew I’d never fly in an airplane again.”
“So you needed a new home. I’m no philosopher, but isn’t that all of us? Either happy with our homes or looking for something better?”
FATE leader Ellenburg and hunting guide Allison Coil in conversation:
“Sorry,” said Ellenburg. “But how exactly do you sit there and watch these beautiful animals being killed and carved up?”
Actually, I don’t sit there, I show them exactly how to gut and quarter.
“Probably not a good idea to get into it,” said Coil. “I think we can just agree to disagree on that one.”
“No seriously,” said Ellenburg. “These majestic, beautiful creatures. Slaughtered. and you think it’s okay? You seem like a woman with a bit of a world view, If I’m not mistaken. It’s just a hunch but you seem smarter than the average local up here.”
“I’m from the city, originally, it’s true,” said Coil. “I respect what you’re doing and I respect your point of view. It’s just not mine. The fact of life today is that you can’t let the elk and deer population explode unchecked. There are just too many. And hunting is older than the wheel. It’s just the way it is. You can’t go back and undo the fact that human beings have the ability and the desire to hunt. It’s an animal instinct.”
Ellenburg shook her head slowly.
“You think people—societies, whatever— have no control over their future?”
“I think reality is reality,” said Coil. “That’s all.”
Some people die accidentally. Some people die because they are hunted and killed in war. They all end up in the same situation. Hunting is part of human nature.
Coil took a tentative step back. She knew this was headed nowhere but ugly.
There is more on hunting. The title has meaning, but the reader doesn't know where it fits until near the end. And there are interesting references to FATE as a political commune, the easy manipulation of the news with “visuals,” government as a dangerous servant and fearful master. The few sex scenes are skillfully written, which is to say they are not at all crude and they help explain the nature of the characters. They weren't just thrown in. Slater is not who he seems....
I’m not going to spoil the story with a plot analysis. Just know that it is full of turns, surprises and dangerous times for Allison Coil and a few others who don’t fare as well as she does.
An author bio from Stevens’ website says,
The son of two librarians, Mark Stevens was raised in Lincoln, Massachusetts, graduated from Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School and, four years later, from Principia College in Illinois. He worked as a reporter for The Christian Science Monitor in Boston and Los Angeles, covering a variety of events and issues from the economy, commercial fishing, the environment, politics and all the colorful people and events of southern California. Following a move to Denver, he worked for The Rocky Mountain News, covering City Hall for three years. When he learned that The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour was expanding its production he was lucky enough to be invited to join the team – they were actually looking for somebody with no television experience, which suited him perfectly. For six years, he produced field documentaries across the United States and Latin America. He covered the 1985 earthquake in Mexico City, NASA’s space shuttle disaster, a volcano eruption in Colombia, political upheavals in Nicaragua, and mudslides in Puerto Rico. His “master of disaster” title, he was told, referred to the stories he covered, not the quality of the reports. After tending bar for a year on a self-financed sabbatical (and to write fiction), he joined The Denver Post to cover education. Those five years of reporting led to a position as Director of Communications with Denver Public Schools for more 11 years and then with the school district in Greeley for a year. He now works in communications with the state department of education. Stevens lives near Congress Park in beautiful downtown Denver with his wife, Jody Chapel, and two daughters, Ally and Justine.
So author Mark Stevens is a city guy with a history in journalism and public relations. The background helps—the references to PR and news management evidently come from experience. He also knows how to build tension and write a darn good mystery. He adhered to Elmore Leonard’s rule number ten: “Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.” I thoroughly enjoyed Antler Dust and am looking forward to his next book.
There are a cast of characters—outfitter and pilot, George Crumley, who caters to fat-cat hunters that fly in on their private jets. George insures trophy winning results. His wife, Trudy, has a medical condition causing occasional seizures, which requires someone to baby-sit her all the time. George is happy to provide a constant guard. One of them gets a little too close to Trudy. Allison, who works for a competing outfitter, and Trudy become friends and both play important roles in the story's ultimate outcome. Dawn Ellenburg is the head crusader of FATE and is going to milk the public relations benefit of the killing of one of her group for all its worth. She gets national coverage. Dean Applegate is the newly converted hunter-guide who now sees the error of his ways, joins FATE, and makes speeches—a dream fulfilled for Ellenburg. Then there is Slater, Allison’s Forest Ranger boyfriend, seemingly a nice guy.
Allison is a likable protagonist. She’s smart, capable and courageous, but not so perfect that she strains credulity. How did she get into such a business? She was a survivor of a commercial jet airplane crash into Long Island Sound. After that life defining moment, she dropped out of her previous corporate-city existence and was fortunate enough to get hired by Weaver, an outfitter of integrity. She learned on the job.
About Allison, early in the book:
A group of animal rights protesters had set up tents at the base of the mountain that morning. She had not given much thought to them until now. She imagined that most of them were like the men she had left back at the hunter’s camp, city dwellers out on a lark. But with the coming snowstorm, they just might learn the hard way that Mother Nature was indifferent to the rights of everyone and everything on this planet. You might as well protest earthquakes, fires, floods, and falling airplanes.
Allison—a rational realist. Perhaps that’s why I liked her from the beginning.
Later, contemplating the airplane crash:
Two years now in the mountains, and she was beginning—barely beginning— to consider that notion that she had, in fact, been lucky. Another few seconds further down that runway and the drop would have been an exponentially greater slam to reality. A few seconds more and 31 dead could have been 119 dead....Death, she had learned, is simply a corpse you carry around underneath your skin. Until one day it pops free.
The narrator in Allison’s head...about Slater while in conversation with him:
Coil with a cop-like guy? The idea was a constant source of amusement. It wasn’t necessarily forever, but nothing yet made her think that would be unbearable. He didn’t seem to have the typical government mentality. Also, he was strong and straightforward. Coil had never before been with a man who could be classified in the “straightforward” category. Slater was a trim six-footer with an engaging face, dark eyes over a slender nose....Coil liked the way he moved and talked, all careful and in control, but he could flip over to relaxation mode without much effort.
And later, more on Slater:
The last full-fledged boyfriend she’d had, after the airplane accident, was hung up on every mystical song Van Morrison had ever sung. He was a mental drifter, a searcher, who calculated the price of belonging to every structure or organization as some sort of personal sacrifice.
Not Slater. He was somebody who saw his place, or at least knew how to pretend he did. As a result, the picture of comfort and suggestion of stability was strangely inviting.
I chuckled at that bit because while I'm am not a drifter—mental or otherwise—I tend to agree that "the price of belonging to every structure or organization as some sort of personal sacrifice." And I learned how to "pretend" in the corporate world. Another significant conversation with Slater:
"Indoctrination. That’s the city life too. It wears you down. Conform or else,” said Coil.
“Really? I thought the city was where all the weird folks could hide, do their own thing. I thought non-conformity was the point and why people liked living in the city to watch it all go down.”
“Conformity at the corporate level, I suppose, said Coil. “Wear certain suits, read certain books, hang out in just the right places, say just the right things.”
“Well, you fit in here, too,” said Slater. “Half the folks in the mountains out here are runners, anyway.”
“I didn’t run from anything.”
“No?”
“I just needed trees and sky. And I knew I’d never fly in an airplane again.”
“So you needed a new home. I’m no philosopher, but isn’t that all of us? Either happy with our homes or looking for something better?”
FATE leader Ellenburg and hunting guide Allison Coil in conversation:
“Sorry,” said Ellenburg. “But how exactly do you sit there and watch these beautiful animals being killed and carved up?”
Actually, I don’t sit there, I show them exactly how to gut and quarter.
“Probably not a good idea to get into it,” said Coil. “I think we can just agree to disagree on that one.”
“No seriously,” said Ellenburg. “These majestic, beautiful creatures. Slaughtered. and you think it’s okay? You seem like a woman with a bit of a world view, If I’m not mistaken. It’s just a hunch but you seem smarter than the average local up here.”
“I’m from the city, originally, it’s true,” said Coil. “I respect what you’re doing and I respect your point of view. It’s just not mine. The fact of life today is that you can’t let the elk and deer population explode unchecked. There are just too many. And hunting is older than the wheel. It’s just the way it is. You can’t go back and undo the fact that human beings have the ability and the desire to hunt. It’s an animal instinct.”
Ellenburg shook her head slowly.
“You think people—societies, whatever— have no control over their future?”
“I think reality is reality,” said Coil. “That’s all.”
Some people die accidentally. Some people die because they are hunted and killed in war. They all end up in the same situation. Hunting is part of human nature.
Coil took a tentative step back. She knew this was headed nowhere but ugly.
There is more on hunting. The title has meaning, but the reader doesn't know where it fits until near the end. And there are interesting references to FATE as a political commune, the easy manipulation of the news with “visuals,” government as a dangerous servant and fearful master. The few sex scenes are skillfully written, which is to say they are not at all crude and they help explain the nature of the characters. They weren't just thrown in. Slater is not who he seems....
I’m not going to spoil the story with a plot analysis. Just know that it is full of turns, surprises and dangerous times for Allison Coil and a few others who don’t fare as well as she does.
An author bio from Stevens’ website says,
The son of two librarians, Mark Stevens was raised in Lincoln, Massachusetts, graduated from Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School and, four years later, from Principia College in Illinois. He worked as a reporter for The Christian Science Monitor in Boston and Los Angeles, covering a variety of events and issues from the economy, commercial fishing, the environment, politics and all the colorful people and events of southern California. Following a move to Denver, he worked for The Rocky Mountain News, covering City Hall for three years. When he learned that The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour was expanding its production he was lucky enough to be invited to join the team – they were actually looking for somebody with no television experience, which suited him perfectly. For six years, he produced field documentaries across the United States and Latin America. He covered the 1985 earthquake in Mexico City, NASA’s space shuttle disaster, a volcano eruption in Colombia, political upheavals in Nicaragua, and mudslides in Puerto Rico. His “master of disaster” title, he was told, referred to the stories he covered, not the quality of the reports. After tending bar for a year on a self-financed sabbatical (and to write fiction), he joined The Denver Post to cover education. Those five years of reporting led to a position as Director of Communications with Denver Public Schools for more 11 years and then with the school district in Greeley for a year. He now works in communications with the state department of education. Stevens lives near Congress Park in beautiful downtown Denver with his wife, Jody Chapel, and two daughters, Ally and Justine.
So author Mark Stevens is a city guy with a history in journalism and public relations. The background helps—the references to PR and news management evidently come from experience. He also knows how to build tension and write a darn good mystery. He adhered to Elmore Leonard’s rule number ten: “Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.” I thoroughly enjoyed Antler Dust and am looking forward to his next book.
December 12, 2023
The fictional Allison Coil sed to be a bigshot in the big city. But near miss in an airplane was the catalyst that changed her. As the book opens, she’s working as a guide in the Colorado mountains for hunters. She’s apparently good at what she does, and she’s apparently good at hopping from bed to bed among the other guides. She reminds me in that area of that fictional Australian amateur sleuth Phryne Fisher. But I grossly digress.
A hunter guide from one of the other camps shoots at what he thinks is a deer. The dead human is an animal rights protestor who apparently had little time left anyway and wanted to end his life creatively. He dressed all in brown so as to look like a buck from a long distance. The guy who shot the protestor seeks to cover up what he did with the help of his boss, George. It’s up to Allison to figure out the fleeting images she saw that night and piece together the scant evidence.
I’ll continue the series. This seems like a decent beginning that deserves additional attention.
A hunter guide from one of the other camps shoots at what he thinks is a deer. The dead human is an animal rights protestor who apparently had little time left anyway and wanted to end his life creatively. He dressed all in brown so as to look like a buck from a long distance. The guy who shot the protestor seeks to cover up what he did with the help of his boss, George. It’s up to Allison to figure out the fleeting images she saw that night and piece together the scant evidence.
I’ll continue the series. This seems like a decent beginning that deserves additional attention.
June 17, 2020
Allison Coil, glad to meet you! I confess to being a Nancy Drew fan when I was a girl. Sherlock Holmes never struck me with the same sense of identity as a young woman cracking the code on crime. So I was delighted by Mark Steven's invention of Allison Coil, self confident, smart, and comfortable with her own grit. Antler Dust is a skillful set-up for the Allison Coil Mystery Series as it introduces the landscape of the Rocky Mountains, co-star to Allison's natural curiosity, and the romantic outdoor life of a rustic woman who isn't afraid to be alone in the dark. Most particularly, I appreciated the romantic intrigue as a side show to the investigation. Allison Coil is all heart, but her intelligence is in command, and it was a pleasure watching her sleuth. Looking forward to Book 2, Buried by the Roan.
August 3, 2019
The basic premise was great, and I always love a book set in an area I know. But there was so many narrators and each switch took seemed to take several lines before it could be determined who was talking, which then required reading said lines. I also felt that both Allison Coil's plane crash and Trudy's seizures were just a bit over the top and not really necessary for the plot. I think this author has a lot of promise and I'd like to see what else he can do. But this one just misses the mark for me.
December 13, 2020
I loved "Antler Dust" on so many levels. First of all, the characters are believable, including the ones doing misdeeds. Alison Coil has survived a terrible tragedy, so living and working in the wilderness is helping her heal. She witnesses two possible crimes, but then has to convince those in power that she didn't imagine what she saw. Mark Stevens vividly describes the surroundings so you feel you are right there too. There is suspense throughout the book, including a surprise plot twist in the last chapter. So glad there are now 4 more books in this series to read!
July 19, 2020
A neat mystery with really promising plot points. However, what stood out to me most was not quite PG. If the author had, um, cooled it on the sex scenes, I’d have easily given this another star. They didn’t add anything to the plot and were kind of a shock, coming out of nowhere. Not sure what skinny dipping had to do with everything. Other than that, the elements of the book’s plot were really unique and kept me hooked the whole time.
August 13, 2021
Thoroughly enjoyable, with interesting puzzles, well-drawn characters and quick-paced action. What I liked best, though, was the setting–the Rocky Mountains seemed as beautiful in this book as they look from my backyard on a clear day. I also loved the strong friendship that develops between Allison and Trudy, a woman she meets in the course of her investigation. I don’t often find strong female friendships in novels that aren’t labeled “Women’s Fiction,” and it’s nice to find one here.
April 13, 2018
Hunting, Mystery and Murder in Colorado
Antler Dust is a well paced thriller revolving around the controlled hunting industry and animal rights activists in Colorado. Engaging characters and twists and unexpected turns keep the reader involved until the very end of this enjoyable read.
Antler Dust is a well paced thriller revolving around the controlled hunting industry and animal rights activists in Colorado. Engaging characters and twists and unexpected turns keep the reader involved until the very end of this enjoyable read.
September 21, 2017
It took me a long time to get through this book. It kept my interest enough to keep going through the first half, but really didn’t become a page-turner until the second half. Not sure yet if I will read the next in the series.
April 8, 2021
Pretty good
Lots of action and lots of plot twists to make it interesting, very hard to make a final guess as to the ending until to very last two pages. In my book very close to being a can’t put down page turner
Lots of action and lots of plot twists to make it interesting, very hard to make a final guess as to the ending until to very last two pages. In my book very close to being a can’t put down page turner
February 16, 2022
I enjoyed this first book in the Allison Coil mystery series. Easy flowing writing with great detail of Colorado locations, read a little like a Dexter episode at times with just enough to keep the reader motivated and perplexed.
June 28, 2024
Need to hire someone to proofread before publishing
Good character development
Storyline was excellent With a lot of crooked officials
Too many errors at times to hold my interest.
Good character development
Storyline was excellent With a lot of crooked officials
Too many errors at times to hold my interest.
November 30, 2017
This is a gripping story. The setting is richly described and integral to the story as opposed to ornamentation. The plot is captivating and meticulous as to what gets revealed when. Very nice.
August 5, 2021
Interesting reading
A bit disjointed in the telling, but I think that goes to Allison’s mind. Love the descriptions and the mystery of how it will turn out.
A bit disjointed in the telling, but I think that goes to Allison’s mind. Love the descriptions and the mystery of how it will turn out.
June 22, 2023
I averaged up to 4 stars, really… 3.75. Just ok, maybe next in series will be better.
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