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Ty Hauck is back in his fourth outing, and this time he makes the trip to Colorado to help out his goddaughter, Dani Haller. Dani is a whitewater guide outside of Aspen, where a close friend and high-level competitive kayaker has just died on the river. If it isn't suspicious enough that Trey died in a relatively tame section of the river without his helmet on, the death of a hot air balloon pilot who had been shooting his mouth off about having seen someone else on the river with Trey causes Dani to suspect the death wasn't an accident. Dani's stepfather, Wade, is the local police chief, and he seems none too happy to investigate.
When Ty arrives in town to rescue Dani from the jail that Wade has placed her in for her own protection, Dani convinces him to at least take a look into Trey's death. The two travel to the Greeley area for Trey's funeral and so that Ty can take a look at the situation. In short order, it becomes clear that a huge oil and gas conglomerate is involved in nefarious dealings, using both money and intimidation to dissuade the locals from opposing their fracking operations. The intimidation factor ratchets up as Ty and Dani continue to investigate, with both of their lives repeatedly endangered. Attempted shootings, drownings, fires and more are employed by the ex-army specialists hired by the gas company. The second half of the book is filled with one mortally dangerous situation after another, and Gross had me reading into the night to find out if Hauck and Dani prevailed.
It took me the first half of the book to get used to Gross' writing style, however. His writing is filled with short, incomplete sentences, and I found the staccato rhythm this created to be jarring. Short chapters moved the plot along quickly, but the short phrases frequently knocked me out of the plot. By mid-book, once I'd bought into the plot, I no longer noticed the writing, however. The characterization is not exactly flat, but neither is it deeply developed. The book is propelled by action and plot. In this case, with the whitewater rafting, Colorado setting, and fracking for gas extraction, the plot was extremely compelling.
§ Sharon Mensing is the Head of School of Emerald Mountain School, an independent school in the mountains of Colorado, where she lives, reads, and enjoys the outdoors.
Reviewed by Sharon Mensing, May 2015
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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