MOSQUITO

To redeem himself and prevent a disaster in the national parks, adventure guide Ben Baxter must face a tragedy from his past.

MOSQUITO by Douglas Kurtz

Adventure guide Ben Baxter holds himself responsible for an accident in his past: three of his clients drowned in a slot-canyon flood and Ben feels it was his fault. 

While preparing for his 'comeback' eco-tour, he meets a charming but distressed young woman named Poppy, unaware that she is on the run with a satchel full of cash, and an envelope of suspicious photographs belonging to a murdered wildlife biologist.  When Ben innocently invites her to join the tour, he sets the wheels in motion for a desperate showdown between Poppy, the homicidal security guard who is pursuing her, and himself.

Ben's faulty judgments begin to snowball, until he must confront the fact that his actions may result in a mosquito-borne plague in the crown-jewel national parks. The welfare of park wildlife is in jeopardy, as are the lives of his clients, and it falls to him to make the right decision to redeem himself and avoid another disaster.

Sterlinghouse Publisher

ISBN 1-56315-336X

231 pages

$12.95

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HUNTER'S ISLAND

Kyle Keenan must sacrifice the life he has built to save his embattled family from spiritual and financial destitution.

HUNTER'S ISLAND, by Douglas Kurtz

When constant flooding finally erodes Kyle Keenan's morale, he leaves Hunter's Island in search of a better life, vowing never to return.  But seven years later, when he receives a distressing phone call from his sister, he is forced to confront his forsaken origins and the family he left behind.

Kyle arrives on Hunter's Island to find his former home in ruins, the land littered with flotsam from the river that enfolds it, and his family at the brink of spiritual, moral, and financial destitution.  His father has disappeared under mysterious circumstances; his sister, pregnant at 17, is engaged to a man twice her age; and Damon, his volatile twin brother, is facing prison time for drug possession and felony theft.

To save his family from the destructive forces of Hunter's Island and from themselves, Kyle must decide between the life he has built and the one he left behind, between his newfound love and his resentful brother, between his estranged family and himself.

Coming in 2009...

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