Picnic in the Ruins

by Todd Robert Petersen

A madcap caper across the RV-strewn vacation lands of southern Utah meets a meditation on mythology, authenticity, the ethics of preservation, and one nagging question: "who owns the past?"

Anthropologist Sophia Shepard is researching the impact of tourism on cultural sites in a remote national monument on the Utah-Arizona border when she unexpectedly crosses paths with two small-time criminals. The Ashdown brothers were hired to steal maps from a "collector" of Native American artifacts, but instead of delivering as promised, the brothers are out to strike it rich.

But their ineptitude has alerted the local sheriff to their presence--and forced their employer, a former lobbyist seeking lucrative monument land that may soon be open to energy exploration, to send a fixer to clean up their mess before it upsets her machinations. Sheriff Dalton, following the Ashdowns' trail, soon discovers he's not dealing with a simple burglary--and any hope the sheriff had for peace and quiet is long gone.

Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Mystery Thriller, Adventure, Crime, Westerns

328 pages, Paperback

First published January 5, 2021

Reviews

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my first exposure to this author and I am glad I tried him out. I was rewarded with numerous laughs. Yes, it is a serious subject at core...provenance of artifacts, but the comical characters and wild action was highly entertaining. This book provided me with interesting topics to consider seriously whilst introducing comically developed characters that can only be imagined on the big screen. At least I do hope I shan't meet any of the "bad guys" in real life, but then it is Utah/Arizona...

[Sharon Mensing · Rating 4 out of 5]

This Western thriller takes place in an unnamed national monument near Bryce Canyon. I'm pretty sure it is meant to be the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that the characters are involved in a scheme associated with the federal government's plans to reduce the size of the monument, something that has actually happened to Grand Staircase Escalante during the last administration. The monument contains many Indian ruins, both charted and uncharted, and this book concerns the attempt by some to plunder those ruins and the opposing attempt by others to protect them.

The characters are just what you might expect from a book set in the vastness of the Western landscape, including an archeologist, a park ranger, and a tourist on the preservationist side and backwoods brothers, an evil capitalist, and a hired assassin on the opposing side. In addition, the reader meets a small-town lawman, an off-the-grid eccentric, a polygamist family living alongside an isolated antigovernment group, and many others. The book has a very eclectic and fascinating cast.

Throughout, the reader is asked to join in a struggle to understand the nuances of ownership of ancient ruins and artifacts. As one can imagine, this is a very complex topic which Petersen asks the reader to contemplate but for which he doesn't provide a definitive answer. Copies of copies and provenance play a role, but mainly to stimulate reflection. The fast-paced suspense is well resolved, if somewhat quickly, at the end of the book. I found a connection revealed at the very end to be a bit hokey, but otherwise found the ending satisfying.

The writing about the desert landscape of the monument is beautiful and as enticing as it is frightening. I loved reading about this part of the world, an area that is familiar to me. Being transported by Petersen to the monument is as close as some will come to visiting it, and I imagine the heroes of this book, and Petersen himself, will be quite happy with that.

[Randal White · Rating 3 out of 5]

Simply put, I did not enjoy this book.
Set in the Southwest United States, it's a story about ancient Indian ruins, their preservation, and their looting.
I feel the author lost his way. Too many characters, none of whom I liked. The story itself couldn't figure out where it wanted to go. It felt jumbled together, and not really going anywhere. It just left me feeling unsettled and unsatisfied.
Cannot recommend this one.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This adrenaline filled, crime ridden, often humourous romp through the wild lands of Utah and Arizona was like an action movie in print form. There were shootings, car chases, kidnapping, double-crosses, and of course murder, but somehow it was also really fun! There is an almost slapstick level of comedy provided by the Ashdown Brothers and their idiotic, yet witty banter that made me chuckle more than once. There are a lot of characters who at first seem to have little to do with each other but as time goes on connections are made until finally it escalates into absolute mayhem and I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that not everyone survives. I was particularly concerned about sweet cinnamon roll and inadvertent cultural appropriator Reinhardt and I won’t give any hints about his fate or that of any other character, except the dog; the dog survives. I can say that the perilous final chase through the desert was an absolute nail-biter and I was sure everyone was going to die. There was serious tension until the glorious and satisfying end.

While this is a crime novel full of excitement and humour it also sneaks in serious messages about everything from archaeological ethics to government corruption to the treatment of Native Americans. As an archaeologist I died a little inside reading some of these scenes. Working in the Middle East I am very aware of looting and artifacts on the black market so I’m not at all shocked by that aspect but some of the actions of even the “good guys” caused me to physically cringe. I’m pretty sure my soul shriveled and hoped for death during the scene involving a backhoe. There are a lot of thoughtful relevant issues brought up dealing with the ownership of artifacts and archaeological sites and the ethics removing pieces to museums or even to private collections. The balance between preserving artifacts and preventing their possible destruction while maintaining their meaning is a tricky one and I certainly don’t have it figured out and neither do these characters.

I completely enjoyed this rowdy crime caper and its strange, wonderful, and often awful characters. While the archaeologist in me couldn’t stop figuratively covering my eyes in horror it didn’t prevent me from losing myself to the hot, dusty landscape and the madcap tale. There are characters to love and many to hate and I had no problem getting invested in and swept away by the story.

Thank you Counterpoint Press for providing an Electronic Advance Reader Copy via NetGalley for review.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love a novel that raises great questions, especially questions I’ve never thought to ask before. I think my favorite character was Reinhardt, the German tourist with romanticized ideas about the west who is in search of a hero’s journey and real relics. But it seems all that’s left is the tourist trap version, the one we’ve all seen. And why do we need to see it? We all want to visit the monuments and the national parks, even if they are paved and well lit. “There’s always going to be someone who wants to get here. And there’s always going to be someone to sell them the hiking boots to do it in,” concludes one of the characters. And it’s true! We don’t even know what authentic means anymore but I loved that collectors and archaeologists and criminals and tourists all showed up to raise great questions about where artifacts belong and who should protect them from whom. I love his novels.

[Kasa Cotugno · Rating 3 out of 5]

What I did like about this book was its setting. But it's the second thriller I've read lately that uses dispute over antiquities, their provenance and eventual fate. Who owns the past. There are quite a lot of characters, but with one exception, none are particularly memorable.

[Tina · Rating 4 out of 5]

PICNIC IN THE RUINS by Todd Robert Petersen is a riveting adventure novel! It’s set on the Utah-Arizona border and has several characters with interconnected storylines. I really enjoyed the cinematic quality of the writing and the classic mystery plot points. I found myself really absorbed into this story and read this book quickly in just two days. I’m so curious to read Petersen’s other book It Needs to Look Like We Tried now!
.
Thank you to Counterpoint Press for this review copy!

[Michaela · Rating 2 out of 5]

I pre ordered this book and received it yesterday, Jan. 5. Just finished it today, Jan. 6. Unfortunately this book is full of cliches, trite dialog, characters which feel like composites of corny made for TV movies, and a plot built to artificially include references to current politics, social justice issues, gender issues, and historical injustices to Native Americans. All of this would be fine I suppose if the story was coherent and with purpose, but that is not the case. I will say the cover art is wonderful. Unfortunately what comes after the cover leaves a lot to be desired.

[Jim Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written - keeps ones attention from beginning to end. And the end is not foreseeable! Thoroughly enjoyed this. Good cast of well developed characters. Presents the differences in approach to historical items/places clearly - leave in place and protect, put in museums and protect, private collectors and politicians being politicians (in the worst way). Not just entertaining but a book that gets one thinking about parks, museums and collections and the differences.

Read this as a book selected for a reading club. An excellent selection - thank you Laura.

[Kate M · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.75 stars for me. Good, but for the writing itself it’s not quite a 3.

It started out a bit slow but turned in to a better book than I was expecting. I liked the descriptions of the American Southwest and the overarching idea of the book, which was who owns antiquity and do we have a right presently to take things from ancient sites? It seems a form of theft, as well as of cultural appropriation to me, and I believe the author feels very much the same. I hadn’t thought about it the same way previously.

The ideas of this novel were excellent, but the characterization and introduction of the characters when they came into play seems random and just not enough. They are sort of all over the place, except for Sophia and Dalton, and there were a lot of underdeveloped characters as well as some that just did not seem to fit anywhere.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mystery set near Bryce Canyon - a man spent his life collecting Native American artifacts then decides to return them to the places he found them. Several plots all converge in the end; an energy company trying to buy the land, a park ranger helping the old man return his artifacts, a young doctoral student trying to decide if tourism helps or hurts the land, and a German man on a quest to discover the Western myth of Native American life. All the characters are interesting and some were very funny. What is fake or real?

[Verena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picnic in the Ruins by Todd Robert Petersen is described as a "page-turner of a murder mystery". I disagree that the murder is a mystery. It is clear in the first chapter who does the killing, and subsequent crimes are obvious as well.

The descriptions of the borderlands of Arizona and Utah draw the reader into the panoramic landscape of a stark and ancient land: “Over the eons, the skin of everything had gone thin, and the earth’s orange bones jutted like they’d worn through the dry olive-green garments of the high desert.”

The central question of the story is the management of the land and the artifacts that belonged to the many generations of people who called it home. Should it be opened to public view under the management of the federal government? Sold to the highest bidder for oil and mineral exploration/exploitation? Kept intact and away from publicity and the public?

The discussion of these questions, the admirable descriptions of a majestic place; and the assortment of likeable, despicable, and bumbling characters add up to a four-star rating.

[Connie Whitcomb · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a mystery set in the national monument next to Bryce Canyon. It is complete with wacky characters, armchair philosophers and other relatively normal people. I do not enjoy books overdoing the humor to the point of ridiculousness, but I found this lowkey humor rather amusing. The novel deals with numerous issues: the ethics of removing artifacts either to museums or private collections, looting of archaelogical sites, the ignoring of the native Americans in the Southwest, government corruption in collusion with large corporations, the naming of and reduction of national monuments.
As the mystery and dangerous part developed, I found I couldn't put this book down. I also found the German doctor to be a true-to-life persona having experienced the German fascination with the wild west. All in all, I found this book to be thought-provoking and entertaining, a good combination.

[Stella · Rating 5 out of 5]

There’s a ‘scene’ in “Picnic in the Ruins” where Sophia Shepard is giving a presentation to a herd of tourists. While she talks about museums and who owns the items inside of the museums, one of the audience members mentions that instead of going to a museum, these tours are bringing people to the original locations - almost more of an ‘on-site’ museum. Something about this stuck out to me. When we (as people) go to museums, we are just looking at stuff from other places. Why don’t we go to those places instead? Why are there collectors of artifacts? Who owns these artifacts? What is the value of these items and these places?

Maybe that’s going too deep. Let’s set the stage.

Sophia Shepard is a Ph.D student who has been relegated to remote Utah. She studies in the impact of tourism on Native American sites. The Ashdown brothers are two ne’er do wells who botched a simple robbery and now are on the run from their fixer…who is a ex-magician. There’s a (handsome) Department of the Interior agent and a dermatologist from Germany who join Sophia on her studies and journey to various sites.

There’s also a small town sheriff, a widow and a hi-tech cyber punk turned hermit. It’s like….It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World took place in the Utah desert and instead of ‘loot’, its artifacts and historical sites.

This book is almost an onion - on the surface, a mystery, but peel back the layers for the comedy, then the core. The core plot of this book is the idea of ownership and artifacts. The question of who owns land and how has colonialism and westward expansion changed the landscape. Of what happens to those people and artifacts.

I’m a massive fan of Todd Robert Peterson and his books and I have been for a long time. He was, in fact, the first comp. professor I had in college and his lessons on writing stick with me to this day. His books and writing in general always leave me with a lingering feeling - one that makes me want to write more, to research more, to question more. This book is no different.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read this in advance of the January 5, 2021 release date. Thank you x1 million to Todd for continuing to inspire me, 20+ years later.

[Ashley Rossetto · Rating 4 out of 5]

"And the tragedy is that most people have no idea what they are looking at, and so entire cultures have become decorations, fetishes, trinkets to be bought and sold. They love the artifacts, but it stops there. I don't see these people supporting clean water projects or advocating for the thousands of Indigenous women who have gone missing."

I really enjoyed this book! National Parks with action and assassins, with the heart of the story being about the nature of Indigenous land and National Parks, and how conservation efforts can have the opposite effect on the land, objects, homes, or people that Indigenous Americans were forced to leave behind. Should things be moved to a museum, or left where they lay? I really enjoyed the subtitle headings of the chapters and would go back and reread them at the end of each chapter. "Death by PowerPoint" was my favorite.

[Brian Passey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Armed with a strong sense of place and an array of lovably zany characters, this is the type of mystery that’s perfect for the Edward Abbey desert rat set. Combining elements of Carl Hiaasen’s character building and Nevada Barr’s knack for turning the landscape itself into a character, Petersen adds his own literary flourishes, strong storytelling skills, and a bunch of satisfying pop culture references to build a hero quest mystery that also manages to speak up for the environment and tackle problematic subjects like cultural appropriation. Plus, it’s just a whole lot of fun to read.

[Rebecca · Rating 1 out of 5]

Guys, I couldn’t do it. It reads like a self published book but in a bad way. (I’ve read good self published books.) I was excited because it is set in Southern Utah by a professor at SUU- where I spent a year. But from the very first page I was annoyed by the writing and honestly, life is to short to read books that are in no way engaging. Totally fumbled a good concept.

[Kristin Towers · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars ⭐️

I really enjoyed the dark mix of comedy and serious topics in “Picnic in the Ruins”, though parts are a bit of a logical stretch and it may have been better served as a novella. I’m never a fan of characters making big realization 70% of the way through when we already know the thing, and it’s not serving as a ticking bomb. That said, I can’t ignore (after a string of books which weren’t very interesting) how much I appreciated Petersen’s narrative carousel of characters, none of whom are bland archetypes. I didn’t connect with any of them necessarily but did like them as an ensemble (of sorts).

The plot moves pretty quickly,— though there is a lot of it — characters are always doing something interesting if they’re just talking heads in the scene, and I like that multiple worldviews around Native American and cultural heritage sites are represented on the backdrop of human greed.

Overall, this is a pretty fun and competent story set against a thoughtful backdrop of post-colonialism proprietorship.

[Larry Fontenot · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel is filled with so much information that we sometimes forget that there are crimes and criminals involved. The narrative ends up as a version of a hero's journey, though not all of the characters would probably believe that version. Set in Utah and Arizona and with much of the action on Native American land, this book delves into serious issues of native authenticity, preservation of our historical past and the provenance of historical relics. All while treating us to some really stupid villains and government (and non-government) shenanigans. I had previously read Petersen's prior novel, It Needs To Look Like We Tried, and loved that novel of interlacing stories and interaction between a huge cast of characters. This book feels different because of the plot, but its lucid and luminous prose and intriguing characters are signs that this author knows what he is doing.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun little mystery, especially since I've been to the area where it takes place a few times. There was nothing especially outstanding about the story, and I didn't particularly like any of the characters (except Reinholdt), but it was an entertaining book! The discussion on the provenance of Native American artifacts was thought-provoking and timely.

[LA Lichte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wild & silly at times - still included some serious issues. I must admit I kinda liked one of the “bad guys” - he was funny ! No mystery about the murder, but it sure took the sheriff long enough to figure it out !

[Bridget Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

*3.5

[Olivia Vroom · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5! Very cool to read the research I’m doing put into a fictional story

[Stephen Chase · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best fiction ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Audrey · Rating 2 out of 5]

A convoluted plot and no character development make this a no go for me.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Worth it for the book group discussion!

[Alison]

This book hooked me quickly – the characters were quirky, the writing was funny, and it had a bit of a mad-cap vibe along the lines of Carl Hiaasen that I enjoy. Unfortunately, as it went on, it lost some of its charm, so when it devolved into a shoot-out midway through, I decided to hang it up.

Did not finish, despite my initial high hopes.

[Janet · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book. Someone compared to a Tarantino film and I think that's true. It's funny, serious and filled with interesting characters and a complex plot.

[Britta · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first half borderline bored me, but in the end I had a good time with this book.
The best thing about it, in my opinion, are the descriptions of western scenery. Vivid. Gorgeous. Took me back home to the mountain west.
Like I said, the first half felt a little lacking for me. The plot has a slow burn and I just felt like it got a little preachy about conservation, which, like, DUH. Preaching to the choir over here.
The second half though, hell ya, what a ride.
The characters are all jerks in their own way, which adds a degree of, if not humor, at least relatability to the story.
The ending was a little predictable, but also not.
It reads like a western-adventure-mystery and was the perfect thing for a long summer weekend.

[Elizabeth Muscare · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is about Indian ruins and who really owns them. It made me really think about museums and digs on burial sites. Throw in murder and a bit of a love interest. This book was enjoyable to me and made me think about things I never really thought about. All you can ask from a book.