Verwandte Artikel zu Yosemite Fall (National Park Mystery)

Yosemite Fall (National Park Mystery) - Softcover

Buch 4 von 10: National Park Mysteries

Graham, Scott

 
9781937226879: Yosemite Fall (National Park Mystery)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1937226875 ISBN 13: 9781937226879
Verlag: Torrey House Press, 2018

Inhaltsangabe

“Filled with murder and mayhem, jealousy and good detective work—an exciting, nonstop read.”

—ANNE HILLERMAN

Archaeologist Chuck Bender arrives with his family in the beautiful Yosemite Valley to study the 150-year-old murders of a pair of gold prospectors. In the midst of Chuck’s work, preparations for the annual Yosemite Slam rock-climbing competition, and a reunion with his old climbing buddies, the trip quickly turns threatening. One climber never shows up, climbing equipment fails, and Chuck and his wife, Janelle Ortega, are suspected in the shocking, present-day death of one of Chuck’s former rock-climbing partners. Together, Chuck and Janelle race against time to solve the dual mysteries and prove their innocence—all while facing down a ruthless killer on the loose. This is the fourth book in the National Park Mystery Series.

"An exciting, rewarding puzzle."
—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

Archaeologist Chuck Bender arrives with his family in Yosemite Valley to study the 150–year–old murders of a pair of gold prospectors in the midst of preparations for the annual Yosemite Slam rock–climbing competition and a reunion with his old climbing buddies. The trip quickly turns threatening when one climber never shows up, climbing equipment fails, and Chuck and his spouse, Janelle Ortega, are suspected in the shocking, present–day death of one of Chuck's former rock–climbing partners. Together, Chuck and Janelle race against time to solve the dual mysteries and prove their innocence—all while facing down a ruthless killer on the loose.

SCOTT GRAHAM is the author of eight books, including the National Park Mystery Series from Torrey House Press, and Extreme Kids, winner of the National Outdoor Book Award. Graham is an avid outdoorsman who enjoys mountaineering, skiing, hunting, rock climbing, and whitewater rafting with his wife, who is an emergency physician, and their two sons. He lives in Durango, Colorado.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

SCOTT GRAHAM is the author of eight books, including the National Park Mystery Series from Torrey House Press, and Extreme Kids, winner of the National Outdoor Book Award. Graham is an avid outdoorsman who enjoys mountaineering, skiing, hunting, rock climbing, and whitewater rafting with his wife, who is an emergency physician, and their two sons. He lives in Durango, Colorado.

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Chapter 1
Twelve-year-old Carmelita was fifteen feet off the ground and climbing higher, her yellow T-shirt bright in the morning sun, before Chuck, caught off guard by her speedy ascent, reacted.He retrieved the growing slack in the climbing rope, sliding the line past his brake hand and through the belay device attached to his waist harness. The rope's braided sheath warmed his skin as it slipped through his cupped palm.Thin as a whiffle bat, her navy tights hanging in loose folds from her tiny thighs and calves, Carmelita balanced the rubber soles of her climbing shoes on the resin holds bolted to the climbing tower and grasped additional holds above her head with chalked fingers, hoisting herself skyward."Take it easy," Chuck called up to her, pride edging his voice, as he took up the last of the slack in the rope. "Give me a chance to keep up, would you?"She hesitated for only a heartbeat before climbing higher, her helmeted head back, her moves smooth and fluid as she moved from hold to hold up the vertical tower.Chuck shot a grin at Janelle, who stood beside him in a form-fitting fleece top and black yoga pants. "You sure she hasn't snuck off and done this before without our knowing it?"His grin widened as he looked back up at Carmelita. A sweet spot, that's where he found himself, three years into parenthood, on a working vacation with his family in the heart of Yosemite National Park on this sunny mid-August morning, hired to explore a pair of confounding, hundred-and-fifty-year-old murders here in Yosemite Valley.Everything on this day was right in his world. Perfect.A loner turned sudden husband to Janelle and stepdad to Carmelita and Rosie three years ago, Chuck was well settled in to his new life by now, taking off for his morning runs with Janelle before the girls awoke, working in his small study in the back of the house during school hours, helping Janelle with household chores and the girls with their homework in the evenings. He bid for most of his work close to Durango these days, too, assuring he made it home on weekends when he conducted the fieldwork portion of his contracts.His morning runs kept him lean and fit at forty-five, fifteen years Janelle's senior, even as gray spread from his sideburns through the rest of his scalp and new wrinkles pleated the edges of his mouth, matching the crow's feet that for years had creased the sun-scorched corners of his eyes. Above Chuck, Carmelita continued her smooth ascent. Her bravura climb in front of the crowd of a couple dozen onlookers at the foot of the tower, so out of character for her, took him aback. Such brash public displays weren't like her. Rather, they were the province of her openly exuberant ten-year-old sister, Rosie.He took in an arm's length of rope. Another sidelong glance revealed a smile on Janelle's face that matched his own as she watched her older daughter's confident moves up the portable, forty-foot climbing tower, which was raised on hydraulic arms from the bed of a flatbed trailer attached to a parked semi-truck at the edge of the Camp 4 parking lot.Janelle's smile reinforced what she'd told Chuck in their crew-cab pickup last night, after the girls had fallen asleep in the rear seat as they'd driven deep into the night on the way here from Colorado. She'd spoken softly, so as not to awaken the girls, of her pride at having passed the last of her Emergency Medical Technician certification courses, her paramedic application now pending with Durango Fire and Rescue."She must have gotten this from you," Janelle said at Chuck's side, her olive face turned skyward. Her dark hair, long and silky, hung free down her back, and a tiny gemstone glittered in the side of her small, pointed nose."Not me." Chuck took up more slack, maintaining slight tension on the line to assure it would catch Carmelita the instant she fell—if she fell. "I was always a grunter. I climbed by force of will. But look at her. She's defying gravity, and she's doing it with pure grace."Carmelita passed the tower's halfway point, moving higher despite the decreasing size and number of holds on the top half of the structure. She grasped the undersized resin grips with the tips of her fingers, her weight on her toes. The climbing rope extended from her harness to a pulley at the top of the wall and back down to Chuck in the parking lot below. Her chestnut hair, gathered in a pony tail, gleamed in the sunlight beneath the back of her helmet. She showed no hint of fear as she passed thirty feet off the ground, nearing the top of the tower."You go, girl!" Janelle's brother and Chuck's assistant, Clarence, called to Carmelita from where he stood thirty feet back from the base of the tower with the other onlookers, several of whom waited their turn to climb when Carmelita finished.Clarence tucked his shoulder-length black hair behind his silver-earring-studded ears and raised his hands in a two-fisted salute, the sleeves of his black T-shirt climbing his pudgy upper arms toward his shoulders, his jeans riding low on his hips beneath his sizable gut."Yeah! You go, girl!" ten-year-old Rosie echoed from where she watched at her uncle's side.Rosie's stocky frame contrasted sharply with that of her slight sister. She could have been her uncle's twin, however, he with his squat physique and pot belly, if not for the difference in their ages."No way am I going up that thing," Rosie declared. She hooked her thumbs through the belt loops of her shorts. "No frickin' way.""Rosie!" Janelle admonished. Her reprimand was halfhearted, however, focused as she was on Carmelita three stories overhead. Janelle put her hand to her brow, shielding the sun. "Isn't that high enough?" she asked Chuck."She might send it," Chuck replied, agog. "She might actually top out."Carmelita continued to clamber upward, the widely spaced holds at the top of the tower presenting her no discernible difficulty until, as if by levitation alone, she was forty feet off the ground and there was no more climbing to be done. After giving the top of the fiberglass tower a tap, she leaned back in her harness as Chuck had instructed, her feet flat on the wall. She shook out her hands at her sides while he held her in place, his brake hand gripping the rope."How's the view from up there, sweetness?" he called up to her.She looked at the granite cliffs lining the valley thousands of feet above the top of the tower. "I've got a ways to go."At Chuck's side, Janelle shivered. "Don't get any big ideas, nina."Chuck relaxed his grip and lowered Carmelita, the rope running through his palm. "I'm glad I belayed her," he said to Janelle as Carmelita walked backward down the wall while he played the rope through his hand. "As light as she is, I wouldn't have wanted to trust the auto-belay to kick in and catch her."When Carmelita reached the ground, the tower attendant, blond haired, thickly bearded, and in his mid-twenties, approached from where he'd been talking with a female climber his age. The attendant's broad shoulders extended from his tank top straight as a crossbeam. His powerful quads filled the legs of his shorts. The woman climber, waiting her turn on the tower beyond the line of large boulders between the parking lot and campground, wore a magenta bikini top and shiny black climbing tights cut low across her hips. Her bare stomach was tanned and flat. A gold ring sparkled where it pierced the skin above her navel.At the foot of the tower, the heavily muscled attendant untied the rope from Carmelita's waist. "Good going," he praised her, offering his meaty palm for a high-five.Carmelita slapped his hand and pranced over to Janelle and Chuck, a grin plastered on her face. "That was a blast.""You made it look easy," Janelle said."It was easy."Chuck lifted an eyebrow at the bright-eyed youngster before him. "Not for mere mortals."He freed the climbing rope from his harness, allowing the attendant to set about reattaching the rope to the...

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Verlag
Torrey House Press
Erscheinungsdatum
2018
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1937226875
ISBN 13 
9781937226879
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
249
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