The Mirror in the River
When a wealthy woman mysteriously disappears near Aspen, Colorado, former FBI Agent, Brad Walker, finds that his love of fly-fishing in remote mountain areas has planted him directly in the crosshairs of corrupt politicians and a kingpin in the world of human trafficking. When murdered bodies are discovered in a desolate mountain area, it becomes brutally apparent that the life of the missing woman, and others, are in peril. Under the weight of this realization, events spiral and, in a long-forgotten mountain canyon in the midst of a raging storm, Brad Walker faces a lonely confrontation with evil.
The Mirror in the River offers an eye-to-eye look at the evil of human trafficking and the loss of human dignity that is its sad companion. The emotional burden of law enforcement officers who enter this world and a love story between a man and his wife lead the reader on a journey through some dark shadows of our modern world. Natural beauty and daunting weather of the Rocky Mountains become living characters as the story unfolds between Washington, D.C. and Colorado.
Please scroll below to see photographs of scenes depicted in the book.
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1930's Dust Bowl storm over author's hometown, Clayton, New Mexico
"Mom and he had taken a day together to visit the old home place, a two-room house where she had been born and where she had lived the early years of her life. On that special day, Brad had stood with his mother in what had been the kitchen of her tiny home. In the silence of the deserted old house, they had listened to the memories of seven children, a farmer and his wife, scratching survival out of the Dust Bowl of the nineteen-thirties. The memories were there; they had clearly heard them."
Birthplace of author's mother in northeast New Mexico
“They talked of how the fields had originally been grass-covered prairies, home to herds of buffalo and nomadic Indian tribes. Then came the steel plows, gouging without mercy. The wounded earth convulsed, retching upward into dry winds that carried the life-giving soil to other lands. Mom had told him the old stories: monstrous storms that darkened noon skies to midnight black, drowning oceans of dust, days of dampened rags over children’s faces, endless grit in beds, eyes, ears and food. No relief, no money, each day a mechanical repetition of the day before."
Colorado's Blue River, a favorite fly fishing retreat
"Brad had talked about this with his children, told them that one only has to listen to the river. Voices are there. Like winged sirens they sing stories to those who take time to listen. Stories of the land: why the spruce, why the aspen? Why meandering pools or crashing rapids? Stories of the deer that stepped into the river an hour ago, stories of the wooly mammoth that crossed eons ago. Stories of native women at water’s edge preparing hides, stories of last week’s picnic. Rhythms of seasons, years and centuries, they all drift in rivers."
Colorado flower garden, tilled and grown by author
"Brad made his way to a small table with two chairs situated under an aspen tree in his flower garden, or what used to be his flower garden. This had been the most special of places for Elizabeth and him. On summer and autumn weekends they had almost always spent mornings here with newspaper and coffee. More often than not, the newspaper went unread and they just talked."
