Picnic in the Ruins (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781640093225)

Named Best Mystery Thriller in the 2021 New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards

"Part mystery; part quirky, darkly funny, mayhem-filled thriller; and part meditation on what it means to 'own' land, artifacts, and the narrative of history in the West . . . A fast-paced, highly entertaining hybrid of Tony Hillerman and Edward Abbey." --Kirkus Reviews

Anthropologist Sophia Shepard is researching the impact of tourism on cultural sites in a remote national monument on the Utah-Arizona border when she crosses paths with two small-time criminals. The Ashdown brothers were hired to steal maps from a "collector" of Native American artifacts, but their ineptitude has alerted the local sheriff to their presence. Their employer, a former lobbyist seeking lucrative monument land that may soon be open to energy exploration, sends a fixer to clean up their mess. Suddenly, Sophia must put her theories to the test in the real world, and the stakes are higher than she could have ever imagined.

What begins as a madcap caper across the RV-strewn vacation lands of southern Utah becomes a meditation on mythology, authenticity, the ethics of preservation, and one nagging question: Who owns the past?

Author: Todd Robert Petersen
ISBN-10: 1640093222
ISBN-13: 9781640093225
Publisher: Counterpoint LLC
Language: English
Published: 01/05/2021
Pages: 336
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.88lbs
Size: 8.90h x 6.00w x 0.90d

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal Prepub Alert 08/01/2020 pg. 38
Library Journal 11/01/2020 pg. 69
Publishers Weekly 11/16/2020
Kirkus Reviews 11/15/2020
Booklist 12/01/2020 pg. 28
Shelf Awareness 01/15/2021