Robert J Rosenbaum

Colorado Bureau of Investigation consultant C.W. Blakenship's main adversary from the previous year's fight over the F-Bar ranch's water rights returns to the valley intent on finishing his destruction of the ranch and killing Blakenship, the only lawman who had ever come close to catching him. Jessie, Blakenship's wife, drawing on her Ute heritage calls him a skinwalker because of his ability to operate without being seen. The conflict draws in a number players -- some innocent, some not so -- culminating in a dramatic confrontation, the aftereffects of which ripple from New England through Texas to California.

An old rancher drives his pickup into the Flint River and doesn't survive. A straightforward instance of falling abilities - except there is no apparent cause for either the accident or his death. This bothers C.W. Blakenship and Jake Grummond, his occasional partner in crime solving. Their uneasiness turns to suspicion as the heirs quarrel over the ranch and an out-of-state resort developer angles for the ranch's water rights and bodies begin to pile up.

Bank robbers run a roadblock, killing the Sheriff of a high country county and severely wounding a deputy, then disappear into the mountain snow. What begins in mid-January as a straightforward search for two crooks by late May becomes a tangle of people and motives as former Sheriff turned consultant to the State Bureau of Investigation C.W. Blakenship unravels a snarl of embezzlement, drugs and murder that climaxes with a forest fire and a dynamite-laden confrontation.

Automatic rifle fire quashed the holiday mood at the Hazel Lake Estates Volunteer Fire Department's Annual picnic and fund raiser, leaving three dead and numerous wounded - including the community's developer.C.W. Blankenship of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation was about to begin the fundraising raffle when pandemonium broke out, plunging him immediately into the hunt for the attackers. What follows is a long search for motives and identities, punctuated by more gunfire.