RAPTORS RIDGE

A mild-mannered college professor becomes an unlikely candidate to hunt down the killer of the town&rsquo,s richest man and his movie star paramour. But as things progress, it quickly becomes apparent that every attractive woman on the West Coast has become a maniac',s idea of the most dangerous game. , Called in because of a chance encounter years before, Max Blake, a former newspaper reporter-turned-professor and part-time private detective, is forced to form unusual and sometimes dodgy alliances as he investigates the vicious killings with the city&rsquo,s police chief. The alliance is even more complicated because of a past history between Max and the chief, and the fact that the leading candidates for the murders are members of the city',s police force. , The trail winds through the incredible mansion called Raptor&rsquo,s Ridge, through the streets and alleyways of Oregon',s state capitol, and it eventually spills into the state&rsquo,s beautiful but deadly High Desert near the town of John Day. , When the killer is eventually cornered and violence explodes in unexpected ways, Max must use all of his wits and daring, plus a little bit of luck, to remain alive during a deadly night of terror ... and eventual reckoning. , Fans of the author',s Max Blake Westerns series will rejoice in discovering this new and thoroughly modern Max, the great-great grandson and namesake of the legendary federal marshal that forms the basis of five novels from the same author._,