What if everything you believed to be true about your wife’s disappearance turned out to be a lie? In the third and final Red Rock Canyon Mystery, Silas Pearson finally unearths the truth.
It’s been five years since Silas Pearson’s wife, Penelope, disappeared, and two since she started appearing in his dreams. He had believed that she was trying to beckon him to her, but when her skeletal remains are found at the bottom of a reservoir, Silas is stricken with grief and struggles to understand the purpose of his dreams. And when Silas learns that Penelope’s death was not accidental, but a violent execution, he embarks on a renegade mission across the Colorado Plateau to hunt down the last person who saw his wife alive.
The final instalment in the Red Rock Canyon mystery series offers up the missing pieces in the puzzle of Penelope’s disappearance, and uncovers the horrible truth about who wanted her dead and why.
Stephen Legault is a full-time conservation activist, writer, photographer, and organizational development consultant. He is the author of Running Toward Stillness, a meditation on Buddhist spiritual practice, running, and parenthood, as well as several photography books, including Earth and Sky: Photographs and Stories from Montana and Alberta and Where Rivers Meet: Photographs and Stories from the Bow Valley and Kananaskis Country. He lives in Canmore, Alberta, with his wife, Jenn, and two children, Rio and Silas.
"Black Sun Descending reminds us of something that too many people have either forgotten, or never known in the first place: Decades of uranium mining in the desert Southwest not only poisoned the Navajo Reservation, but also despoiled the Grand Canyon ... Given its real-life backdrop, this environmentally conscious mystery is both educational and intriguing, and Pearson’s search for his wife’s body is emotionally affecting." - Mystery Scene Magazine
"A superbly crafted mystery from beginning to end, Black Sun Descending . . . continue[s] to document Stephen Legault’s total mastery of the genre . . . Replete with unexpected twists and surprising turns, it is very highly recommended." - Midwest Book Review
"Legault’s character development and landscape depiction is exquisite, completely immersing you in the heat and dust and sights and smells of the desert. His plotting has become more intricate and enticing with each book . . . and Black Sun Descending ... leaves us with one crime still unsolved, Penelope’s whereabouts still unknown, and a hunger for the final book to reveal all." - Rocky Mountain Outlook
"A perfect recipe for conflict: big money, business first, abuse of native rights and history, all resulting in murder...a skilful story by author Legault and marks a series worth investing your time in." - Hamilton Spectator
"Legault does a masterful job of making it all so believable. The human landscape in The Slickrock Paradox is littered with characters that are not what they seem to be, such that even the good guys are suspect, right up until the end." - Rocky Mountain Outlook
"Exciting, dense with literary references, and definitely worth a try . . . Legault’s complex new series’ start will appeal to conspiracy buffs, outdoors enthusiasts, and literary detectives."
- Library Journal