Ronald E. Baird

Dark Angel Ronald E. Baird First edition

Aaron Hemingway, a former Denver cop who was quietly drummed out of the department when he became too immersed in his role as an undercover narcotics operative, has settled in to a dead-end job as a reporter for the Jack Springs Mountain Miner newspaper. Despite the tensions between old time residents ? a slumgullion stew of miners, loggers, cowboys, retired drug dealers, hippies, near-do-wells and other refugees from the 60s ? and newcomers looking for their own little piece of paradise, things are relatively calm until a high-rolling financier proposes a massive gold mine above the town. Then an anti-mine activist is murdered, and her body is dropped on the newspaper's front porch. With a cast of characters who make Jamie Harrison's Blue Deer, Montana seem like a rest home for burned-out Up With People singers and dancers, things in Jack Springs begin to deteriorate rapidly. When someone from Aaron's past shows up unexpectedly, the situation also becomes personal, and much more complicated. Dark Angel is a tale of murder and intrigue set against the tensions embracing the New West.