Kirjahaku

In 1920, Rocky Mountain National Park is only five years old. With the Great War finally over and the automobile readily available, many Americans are motoring to the National Parks for vacation. Ranger McIntyre's main job is to protect the wilderness from the campers and sightseers. But a body, clad only in underpants, is discovered floating beneath a waterfall. Shortly thereafter a second corpse, also clothed only in underwear, is found lying on a log beside a remote lake. Ranger McIntyre's usual duties as a park ranger do not include murder-or people in their underwear, for that matter-but he starts putting pieces of the puzzle together until they lead him to a backcountry hut and a photographer who orders him to disrobe-at gunpoint.Ranger McIntyre is drawn into an FBI investigation involving a suspect who is selling salacious photographs of nudes who appear to be very, very dead. McIntyre's interaction with the FBI agent is made even more embarrassing by the fact that the agent's secretary is the drop-dead gorgeous Violet Coteau, who looks like a flapper... and acts like an agent.

It's 1923 and Rocky Mountain National Park is scarcely eight years old. District Ranger Tim McIntyre is investigating the killing of three elk. Gala Book, eleven-year-old daughter of the local barber, has befriended one particularly huge bull elk. She decides to protect it by leading it into the backcountry of the national park. Elk are not the only endangered animals, either. While someone's killing elk to get the "whistler" ivory teeth, some Denver criminals are "harvesting" deer and elk for a political big-game supper event. Our ranger, fearing for young Gala's safety, agrees to lead the giant elk into a remote valley, only to become stranded himself. This leaves it up to his lady detective friend, Vi Coteau, to form a posse and stop the poachers. Before it's all over, McIntyre will have to engage in a deadly gun fight, and three men will be murdered.

Among Ranger McIntyre's problems is Small Delights Lodge, a resort inside Rocky Mountain National Park. Someone has taken a shot at the owner, tried to electrocute him, set a bear loose at his door, sabotaged his boat, and disabled the brakes on his car.Suspects include the virago who owns Grand Harbor Lodge, a rogue park ranger, and a mob of Chicago gangsters who want Small Delights for a prohibition speakeasy. When the situation escalates to arson and murder-and a possible romance-McIntyre finds himself longing for the old days when all he had to deal with were poachers and the occasional wounded grizzly or mountain lion.

Few folks remember that the U.S. Mint in Denver was robbed of $200,000 in 1922. One robber was found dead. The others vanished with the money. Even fewer people know that at the same time, the Lawn Lake Dam was being built in Rocky Mountain National Park. Assisted by glamourous detective Vi Coteau, Ranger Tim McIntyre investigates the murders of two workers at Lawn Lake and finds two women acting suspiciously. Also suspicious is the fact that the mint was robbed by two teams of raiders, each team with two men and two women... who needed to hide the loot and themselves. That meant eight people to share the two hundred grand-unless some of them end up dead.

With a two-week vacation so close he can feel it, Rocky Mountain National Park Ranger Tim McIntyre is torn away from fantasies about how much fly-fishing he can fit in when he's roped into using his free time for an informal investigation as a favor to a friend. That's fine with McIntyre, because the friend is FBI secretary Vi Coteau, and investigating at his sweetheart's behest makes it likely that he'll be spending time in close quarters with her. And no quarters could be closer than exploring Colorado's labyrinthine mines, where upper-crust undergraduate Richard Leup and two of his fraternity brothers have been exploring in search of that well-known buried treasure, the Dunraven Hoard. One of the boys has died during the explorations, and the other two are the most likely suspects if the death turns out to be murder and not misadventure...

City cops face prohibition bootleggers, gangster gamblers, and get complaints about this loud new "jazz" music. But up at Rocky Mountain National Park, Ranger McIntyre has nothing to do except eat breakfast, go fishing-and solve a couple of possible murders. One is an amateur mountaineer found hanging from his own rope on Flattop Mountain. The other, a geologist studying stones on Flattop, somehow ingested a poison plant. Both deaths could be accidental-except that a pair of odd-looking creatures has been seen on the mountain, creatures who appear to be adding new rocks to Flattop's ancient aboriginal stone circle. Ranger McIntyre has a further complication. Her name is Vi Coteau and she's an FBI secretary in Denver, independent as an alley cat and drop-dead gorgeous. She wants the good ranger to teach her all about backcountry camping. Why not? McIntyre was planning to go into the wilderness anyway to look for the source of the strange stones being added to the medicine circle. If he took Vi with him, it would be an adventure... in more ways than a backcountry ranger might imagine.

Ranger Tim McIntyre is investigating a series of break-ins at private homes located within the boundaries of Rocky Mountain National Park that are closed for the winter. In one of these homes, a well-dressed stranger is found dead on the floor with his head in the fireplace, apparently suffocated by soot.The investigation reveals that the dead man was a shady antiques dealer looking for a "lost" painting by Albert Bierstadt. A crooked restaurant owner in Denver is keen to acquire this painting. The dead man's partner takes up the search, and to throw others off the trail, she spreads a false rumor that she has found it but that someone has stolen it from her. Although it means snowshoeing and skiing to remote buildings in RMNP, Ranger McIntyre sets out to search every cabin and lodge in his ranger district. But he is being followed by an armed thug, hired by the restauranteur. Luckily, McIntyre's classy-and capable-lady friend Vi Coteau and another park ranger named Eleanor Pedersen become concerned for his safety and decide to follow him into the mountains...

In the 1920s, Rocky Mountain National Park is brand new, yet there's already a feud going on between tour bus drivers and independent guides. One guide is found shot to death, but no one saw a gun. No one heard a shot. Then a bus driver is killed the same way. Ranger McIntyre's glamorous lady detective friend, Vi Coteau, will investigate. Her partner, Eleanor, goes undercover and gets a job driving for the bus company. When it becomes evident that the buses are hauling something other than sightseers, our daring ranger sets the most complicated and dangerous trap of his career.

In the 1920s, Rocky Mountain National Park is brand new, yet there's already a feud going on between tour bus drivers and independent guides. One guide is found shot to death, but no one saw a gun. No one heard a shot. Then a bus driver is killed the same way. Ranger McIntyre's glamorous lady detective friend, Vi Coteau, will investigate. Her partner, Eleanor, goes undercover and gets a job driving for the bus company. When it becomes evident that the buses are hauling something other than sightseers, our daring ranger sets the most complicated and dangerous trap of his career.