From Publishers Weekly
In her second Claire Reynier Mystery (following The Stolen Blue), Van Gieson evokes the desert beauty of New Mexico with meticulous care but fails to draw her key amateur investigator, university archivist Claire Reynier, with emotional depth. Fifty-one-year-old Claire has spent years preserving the legend of Jonathan Vail, a controversial writer from the 1960s who vanished while hiking with his girlfriend, Jennie Dell, through Utah's Slickrock Canyon. Jonathan's mysterious but timely disappearance occurred shortly after he was drafted to serve in Vietnam, and his body, as well as the journal he was purportedly writing, never resurfaced. As an archivist, Claire must focus on the facts, and when a graduate student uncovers the 30-year-old journal while nosing around in Slickrock canyon, Claire senses that Jonathan's disappearance may not have been the result of a simple accident. Although Van Gieson manages to keep the reader guessing throughout, the main characters--Claire, her boss Harrison, the mysterious Lou, ranger Curt Devereux and the elusive Jennie Dell--never quite come to life. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Book Description
When talented young writer Jonathan Vail vanishes without a trace on a camping trip, he leaves behind a wilderness journal, and an acclaimed first novel. But questions abound. Has the twenty-three-year-old prodigy been dispatched by thieves? Does his girlfriend, whose version of Vail's disappearance in Utah's Slickrock Canyon satisfies no one, know more about Vail's fate than she is telling? And what of Vail's eagerly anticipated work-in-progress - a new canyonlands journal - apparently lost along with his body?" "Flash forward more than thirty years, when a rock slide reveals a hidden cave near Slickrock Canyon. Vail's body isn't recovered, but the missing journal is. When it is presented for authentication to Claire Reynier, an archivist and rare-books expert at the University of New Mexico's Center for Southwest Research, danger and mayhem suddenly come to anyone who touches the faded spiral notebook or seeks to discover what happened to Jonathan.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"When talented young writer Jonathan Vail vanishes without a trace on a camping trip, he leaves behind a wilderness journal, and an acclaimed first novel. But questions abound. Has the twenty-three-year-old prodigy been dispatched by thieves? Does his girlfriend, whose version of Vail's disappearance in Utah's Slickrock Canyon satisfies no one, know more about Vail's fate than she is telling? And what of Vail's eagerly anticipated work-in-progress - a new canyonlands journal - apparently lost along with his body?" "Flash forward more than thirty years, when a rock slide reveals a hidden cave near Slickrock Canyon. Vail's body isn't recovered, but the missing journal is. When it is presented for authentication to Claire Reynier, an archivist and rare-books expert at the University of New Mexico's Center for Southwest Research, danger and mayhem suddenly come to anyone who touches the faded spiral notebook or seeks to discover what happened to Jonathan."--BOOK JACKET.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly