As usual Joe has gotten way over his head with his investigation. His partner Ranger Demming was shot while pulling over another vehicle. A black SUV to be exact fitting the same description as the one that was seen leaving the area where her former colleague Ranger Cutler was killed. She radioed for back up and in doing so was nice to notice another ranger car coming for back up. As she is getting out of the vehicle so are the guys from the SUV. She was still a little apprehensive, but knowing there was back up she was able to hold it together. Until she was shot and left to die. She was sent to the local hospital but knowing this was no fluke with Culter being killed, Joe had her sent to another hospital with better security to help protect her.
Further into his investigation things just aren't adding up. People are finding out information that he just isn't sure how it is getting around since he was only working with Cutler who is now dead and Ranger Demming who was in a coma at another hospital. He calls in his old buddy Nate Romanowski to help assist in his investigation.
Meanwhile, his wife Marybeth and kids come out for a visit, which is just what Joe needed to help keep his mind off of everything that is going on. In sitting down with Nate and Marybeth, they do some thinking on what all this is about and why so many people are getting murdered. Well, they come to the conclusion that it is all about microbes that are being naturally produced in the park by one of the natural geysers. Apparently, there is a gas that is released and when lit, they are what they call "flamers." Some big wigs for an environmental agency are trying to get their hands on this and see what they can do. Well, environmentalists are getting in their way, which is resulting people getting killed, such as the first five in the beginning of the book, Cutler who was also a scientist and figured it all out and who all was involved. The shooting of Ranger Demming was just an accident.
With all that said, Joe and Nate figure out who all is involved, how, and why, makes a few phone calls, sets up a sting and manages to arrest all the guys that were involved, except for two, McCann, the lawyer who killed the five at the beginning of the story and a friend of those guys Olig. That I would guess was a murder suicide that set off an unexpected earthquake due to the disruption of one of these natural geysers.
This was a great read and as I have said before, read C.J. Box, you will be very pleased. Keep coming back as the next book in the series will be written up as well and that one is called Blood Trail.
