Antler Dust
Details: Softcover, 296 pages, 5.5 x 8.5.
Publisher: People’s Press
ISBN: 978-0-9817810-8-2
Author: Mark Stevens
Price: $14.95
| In Brief: | An Allison Coil Mystery |
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Author signed copies available |
Antler Dust begins with a bang. Two bangs. On the opening day of the hunting season in the Colorado Flat Tops wilderness, two men go missing. The first is a hunting guide. The second is an animal rights protestor who believes his creative suicide will galvanize the animal rights movement. Hunting guide Allison Coil hears a distant rifle shot and sees just enough through the swirling snow to believe somebody knows something—and isn’t coming forward. Forced to follow her own instincts when the authorities fail to follow through, Allison follows the trail of wounds, blood and fear. She uncovers an underground network of wildlife exploitation, frees a newfound friend from the grips of a violent backwoods monster, and finds that even her closest allies have dark secrets to hide.
Praise:
“The number of fine Colorado crime writers just increased by one. Mark Stevens shows the adept touch of a seasoned mystery writer and displays the avid affection of someone who knows and loves the mountain wilderness. Antler Dust is a wonderful, compelling debut — you won’t find a fresher, more satisfying new voice.” - Stephen White, best-selling author of Kill Me and Missing Persons
“With laudably unsentimental prose and sure command of character, Antler Dust takes us on a dark hunting trip through 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.” - Stephanie Kane, best-selling author of Seeds of Doubt (Scribner) and Extreme Indifference (Scribner)
“Reading Mark Stevens is like reading Ken Follett at his best. Stevens takes a superbly drawn main character—a woman who is as sexy as she is resilient—and throws her into a maze of jeopardy that hooks you right down to the last page.” - Mark Graham, author of The Harbinger (Henry Holt) and The Fire Theft (Viking Penguin)
“A high-country thriller that takes the classic Western and turns it on its head. Packed with offbeat characters, tightly written and loaded with great scenes.” - Philip Reed, author of Bird Dog (Pocket Books)
Murder mysteries use Colorado settings, issues
Allison Coil used to be a city girl until an airplane accident helped her re-evaluate her priorities. Now she lives a completely different sort of life. She tracks game, builds fires and lives in a cabin.
Coil, whom readers met in Antler Dust, is a self-sufficient hunting guide. In the first story, she investigated two murders in the Colorado Flat Tops Wilderness and discovered, as in the plot of any good murder mystery, that things weren’t as they seemed.
Murder has found her again in Denver author Mark Stevens’ second book, Buried by the Roan, which takes places west of the Flat Tops in Roan, Colo.
Stevens will be in Loveland on Saturday to sign copies of his books.
read moreThe writing is flawless.
Antler Dust, the first in the Allison Coil series, is an excellent debut for Mark Stevens. The writing is flawless. Stevens even-handedly handles the issues of hunting from both the pro and con viewpoints. As for Antler Dust, it is definitely in the “con” category, an example of the lengths some people will go to make a buck — or a lot of bucks. The setting is vividly described, letting the reader experience both the beauty and the danger of the wilderness in winter. Allison has her flaws, but she demonstrates the resilience of the human spirit.
read moreA Great Fracking Read
Mark Stevens does a few things extremely well. First – he cares about his characters… And that is the other thing Mark does right – he makes you care about the Roan and the Flat Tops. He describes them in ways that make you ache to see them.
read moreRead one, and you’ll be hooked. It is highly recommended reading.
“Coil is sharp, and Stevens is a great story teller,” notes the Ft. Collins Coloradoan.
Mystery fans can delight in Mark Stevens who has authored Antler Dust and Buried by the Roan. Stevens is a seasoned journalist and public relations pro who has created a Colorado-based crime fiction series featuring Allison Coil, a hunting guide who works in a wilderness area north of Glenwood Springs.
Stevens used his know-how to create these two page-turners. Antler Dust opens on the first day of hunting season in the Flat Tops Wilderness area when two hunters are missing.
Buried by the Roan begins when a body of a hunter is found on the shore of Oyster Lake deep within the same wilderness. Coil is sharp, and Stevens is a great story teller. Read one, and you’ll be hooked. It is highly recommended reading. The books are available at all booksellers.
read moreA fracking mess
Drinking the water
About six months after Antler Dust hit bookshelves, Stevens’ former employer, the now-defunct Rocky, published a 13-part series called “Beyond the boom.” Its focus was the growth in natural gas drilling and exploration in western Colorado, and the controversy over the natural gas extraction method known as fracking. Stevens was intrigued by all the information and energized to begin the next book in his series.
In Buried by the Roan, fracking becomes the backdrop for a story involving a dead hunter, a character named Devo “who has moved up to the woods to prove to the rest of the world that mankind needs to devolve,” and outdoorsmen who are becoming ill as a result of drinking the Flat Tops water.
He’s a little hesitant when asked about his personal opinions on fracking — perhaps a holdover from years of mainstream news reporting. Yet once Stevens does get rolling, his voice betrays a passion. He talks about the Environmental Protection Agency and how it once said fracking was OK, and now is pursuing more thorough analysis. He touches on the process and how it’s “tearing up prime woods and prime wilderness.”
And as he does in Buried by the Roan, he considers the people.
read moreMystery author in Frisco Saturday
Award-winning Colorado author Mark Stevens will be at the Next Page Bookstore in Frisco at 3 p.m. Saturday for a book signing and discussion of his new release, “Buried by the Roan.”
The fate of Colorado’s Roan Plateau and the controversy over energy development are at the heart of the new mystery by Stevens.
read moreGuide, Flat Tops again star in mystery sequel
Review by Dennis Webb
Monday, August 15, 2011
Colorado writer Mark Stevens clearly has an affinity for the leading character in his two mystery novels.
That holds true whether you consider that character to be hunting guide Allison Coil or the Flat Tops Wilderness Area where she plies her trade and solves murders on the side.
Stevens introduced Coil and her beloved hunting grounds north of Glenwood Springs in his 2006 book “Antler Dust.” Now he’s back with a sequel, “Buried by the Roan,” which is being released this month.
Once again, he’s conjured up a suspenseful tale featuring an easy-to-like protagonist and a landscape Stevens clearly knows well, and treasures.
In his sequel, this former newspaper reporter and television news producer works in a number of ripped-from-the-headlines plot drivers. Most notable among them is natural gas development, its use of hydraulic fracturing, and associated groundwater-contamination concerns in western Colorado.
Stevens weaves the controversy over federal government action regarding gas leasing on the Roan Plateau west of the Flat Tops into the narrative — not to mention the book’s title. But in truth it’s somewhat of an ancillary part of this story. The book’s strength isn’t in its handling of the nation’s debate over gas drilling, but in showing how when it comes to environmental causes, people on all sides of an issue can be driven to extremes in pursuing their agendas.
Murder on the Roan, mayhem in Meeker
The time is around now, the place is Rio Blanco County, and the setting includes gas drilling, environmental zealotry, lust and murder. The book, “Buried By The Roan,” by Denver-based writer Mark Stevens, is a mystery, first and foremost. The protagonist, a backcountry guide named Allison Coil, finds herself with a dead client and a set of highly questionable circumstances surrounding the death. She also learns that someone is stalking her small group of clients and outfitters, for undetermined purposes…
Stevens, a former writer for the Denver Post, has visited the Roaring Fork Valley region for years.
“I just really thought that the whole changing landscape, the controversy over hydraulic fracturing, was a good backdrop for a story,” he said.
He has definitely not tried to impose his own political interpretations and ideals onto the story, as might be expected.
“I really don’t believe, when you pick up a book, you want to be lectured to,” he said.
read moreA Western mystery with an environmental twist: review of Buried by the Roan
Erica Olsen from the High Country News reviews Buried by the Roan
In his second mystery novel, Buried by the Roan, Colorado writer Mark Stevens tells a “ripped from the headlines” story involving natural gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The story is set in and around the Roan Plateau area between Glenwood Springs and Meeker, a landscape that has seen its fair share of controversy over oil and gas development.
read moreThe reader will shiver even if he or she is sitting on the beach: it is that realistic
Over my Dead Body Reviews Buried by the Roan
Reviewed by Shirley Wetzel
The writing is crisp, the plot is intricate, and the description of the scenery takes the reader into the beautiful mountains. Both the level of tension and the weather worsen as the stakes get higher. When Allison is struggling to survive, the reader will shiver even if he or she is sitting on the beach: it is that realistic. The characters are well-defined and three-dimensional. The release date is August 2011, and the subject matter couldn’t be more timely. If you’ve wondered what all this frenzy over natural gas and fracking is about, you’ll find your answer here. Mr. Stevens has written an excellent mystery, and I look forward to the next volume in the series.
read moreAspen Public Radio Interview: Buried by the Roan
A December interview with Aspen Public Radio reporter Luke Runyon: http://www.aspenpublicradio.org/news_archive_detail.php?story=8997
read moreA Moment of Thanks
read more
Game Changer
“This American Life” Report
read more“Flat-Out Terrific”
Advance commentary from writers is starting to roll in.
read moreAntler Dust - Four Years Later
Brand new review & what it means
read moreFracking
Buried by the Roan: what is it about?
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