Robert R. Irvine – författare

Named after a Mormon saint, Moroni Traveler may be Salt Lake City''s only gentile private eye that still maintains uneasy contact with the Church of Latter-day Saints. This case finds the former pro football player reluctantly accepting a charge from one of the church leaders to investigate the enigmatic, self-effacing faith healer Jason Thurgood.

Traveler''s commission takes him downwind of the old atomic testing sites to the desolate southwest corner of Utah, commonly known as cult country because of the long-standing activity of various polygamists and self-proclaimed prophets there. Currently the area is under the sway of Moroni''s Children, a cult headed by the ruthless, power-hungry Orrin Porter. At the same time, Moroni''s father and partner, Martin, is working on a missing persons case involving the young mentally handicapped son of an old friend just across the border in Nevada. Oddly, the two cases begin to converge, and the Travelers realize that the superficial answers they seek mask darker, more complex forces at work.

There are three members of KTFO''s ace six o''clock news team—and two of them have been murdered. It is the hottest story of Bob Christopher''s life, assuming he doesn''t get canceled by a sniper''s bullet. But what a story! There are Vegas mobsters, brown berets, a blackmailed executive, and a sex kitten … not to mention the Ku Klux Klan, the Navajos, and an assassin built like a Mack truck. Is this what they call media backlash—or mass murder?

Moroni Traveler finds it a blessing and a curse to be named for the angel that graces the top of the temple looming over Brigham Young''s city. The ex–football star–turned–private detective has returned to Salt Lake City, a town he once called home.

During a spring blizzard, Moroni meets Penny Varney, the ungodly daughter of a powerful high churchman. She retains him to find her mother—whom she fears is dead. His boyhood friend, Willis Tanner, also solicits his services on the same day. Moroni can''t believe his luck, but there''s a catch: Willis is acting for the church and wants Moroni to keep an eye on Penny. Moroni is soon on the trail of a far-out religious sect whose self-appointed savior calls for sanctified murder. Moroni must act fast to close the case and discover the truth. The next victim could be him.

Nicolette Scott is an archaeologist with an unusual specialty, the recent past, and an even odder passion: uncovering lost airplanes. But ancient civilizations are where the funding is, and the New Mexico badlands are where her father is, so Nick bides her time on a dig of prehistoric Anasazi dwellings. When a prospector brings word of his unexpected find—an airplane buried in the shifting sands of the desert—Nick is eager to investigate.

What she finds is an American B-17 bomber, shot down over friendly territory, its long-dead crew still inside. As Nick tries to trace the warplane''s origins and crew, she soon realizes she''s triggered a massive cover-up. Within days the newspaper that reported her discovery has retracted its story, the B-17 itself has disappeared, Nick''s career is in serious jeopardy, and people who saw the plane are starting to die. It will take every survival instinct Nick has learned in the brutal desert to keep her from being the next victim.

The gates of hell are about to open—and heaven help those who stand in the way.

The Indians call it Koshari—the ancient devil spirit who rules his wilderness kingdom from a windswept plateau high above the quiet Utah town of Moondance. Until now, the spirit has remained undisturbed. Soon, however, the terrifying forces of evil will be unleashed, and those who dare violate his sacred land will not escape the fiery heat of the Devil''s Breath.

Bob Christopher is Los Angeles'' Channel Three television-news action reporter. His beat is the little people—the ones who get pushed around, find themselves in god-awful messes, and produce "human interest" for the insatiable maw of television.

But this story was different from the first, when a tiny old lady told Christopher about the bulldozers that had leveled her home without reason or warning. That was ugly enough. What happened to the old lady a little while later was even nastier. And suddenly Bob isn''t dealing with the little people any more. He finds himself in deep with big-time politics, a giant oil corporation, a group of wild American Indians, and a high-priced hooker—all out to make him a corpse before he can report the news.

Salt Lake City is hotter than hell. The Church of the Latter-day Saints is about to celebrate Pioneer Day, in honor of the Saints who crossed half a continent searching for a home. And in the sun-scorched streets, PI Moroni Traveler, fallen Saint and former football star, is searching for a vicious serial killer. The murderer''s calling card is a videotape of his beautiful victims—beautiful before the self-styled "Jack the Ripper" vents his savage, woman-hating rage. The next target is Claire Bennion, the ex-girlfriend Traveler can''t manage to forget. The Church wants the killer stopped, no questions asked. But Traveler has his own reasons for facing down a weird mountain cult, Zion''s powerful elite, and a murderer bent on paying for his own sins in innocent blood.

On a dig at the edge of the sun-seared Sonoran Desert, archaeologist Nicolette Scott witnesses a bizarre plane crash that leaves a young man dead in the cockpit of his mangled, burning Cessna. Federal investigators call it "pilot error," but the dead man''s grieving grandfather, John Gault, a man who shares Nick''s passion for aviation, is demanding answers.

Nick knows what she saw with her own eyes—a chopper shadowing the Cessna before it went down—but no one seems to believe her except John. The two join forces, using a lovingly restored B-24 warplane to rip open a secret hidden in the heat-soaked desert. What they find will plunge them into a fierce battle against a deadly conspiracy in the heart of the West''s most forbidding land.

Bombs, death, and a deadly terrorist have television reporter Bob Christopher at odds with an evil conspiracy.

The star anchorman of Los Angeles Channel 3 News had appeared on his last show—as the victim of a terrorist bomb. The shock waves were still rumbling when his accused killer was found dead of an apparent suicide. The terrorist''s death should have closed the case. But instead, it opens a nightmarish can of worms when television newsman Bob Christopher can''t let bad enough alone and defies the men with money and muscle to focus in on a macabre conspiracy of evil that feeds on human lives and manacles the law.

A mission to murder …

Fifteen miles long, bordered by pristine white beaches, Balesin is an emerald paradise in the blue waters of the South Pacific and home to a bizarre religious cult. Since World War II, the people of Balesin have worshiped airplanes and the rich cargo they carry. Hoping to obtain the spoils of the modern world, they have spent decades trying to lure aircraft down out of the sky with a homemade airstrip and mock planes. But for those who know it, Balesin has an even darker side—one shrouded in a legend of death and cannibalism.

For Nicolette Scott, an expedition to Balesin brings together her life''s twin passions: archaeology and airplanes. But soon two members of the expedition are dead, and from thousands of miles away, a powerful noose of intrigue is tightening around natives and visitors alike. Now Nicolette''s life is in danger too, as her research brings her closer to uncovering this strange island''s long-held mysteries, secrets from the past that have the power to kill.

The network news crew flying out from Los Angeles to cover a forest fire in Idaho believe themselves entitled to danger pay. The blaze has completely destroyed a rural religious community and all its inhabitants and is still raging—but that''s not the reason they feel at risk.

The danger comes from their on-screen reporter—beautiful, sexy, and malignantly ambitious Vicki Garcia. When Vicki turns her wiles on a man who has something she wants—whether an extra minute on camera or a helicopter ride to the off-limits scene of the tragedy—she gets it. Sometimes it provides great coverage; but it can also get one or more of her victims incarcerated, incapacitated, or incinerated. Particularly at peril is the crew''s smitten field producer, Kevin Manwaring, whom Vicki keeps on edge with unspoken—and unfulfilled—promises of delights to come.

The small Idaho town, formerly occupied by the gentle people who perished in the conflagration, is coveted by a mining company. The story seems simple enough—until the television technicians discover a severely wounded dog with a bullet in its chest. As the crew investigates the true origin of the fire, they become the prey of a clever killer.

Bob Christopher, investigative reporter for Channel 3 in Los Angeles, is an old hand at ferreting out consumer fraud. He hardly feels that an all-out effort to reinstate Saint Christopher to the church''s calendar fits that category. Then the cleaning woman who had taken up the saint''s cause is brutally murdered.

Bob, guilty because he brushed the old woman off, is compelled to search for her killer. He finds himself dodging cloudbursts, raccoons, spilled blood, and his obsessed boss, who needs Bob''s presence on the six o''clock news to improve the ratings. Adding to his problems is his elusive film editor, an entrepreneur usually too busy peddling stolen porno tapes to work on the program.

Through this hectic action wander rain-soaked fans in weird costumes vying for places and prizes on the station''s game show. They make it easy for suspects—disguised as surgeons, nuns, and chickens—to melt into the crowd. As Bob Christopher approaches dead center of the web of murder, blackmail, chicanery, X-rated films, and station politics that infest Channel 3''s rickety building, he gets closer to a killer who is out to make the reporter his next victim.

The isolated town of Wasatch sits in Mormon country—a hard place where right and wrong are as clear as night and day. But smoke from nearby mountain wildfires swirls menacingly through the streets, as unsettling as the dark secrets so zealously guarded by Brigham Young''s faithful.

Moroni Traveler, a PI named for an angel, is an outsider—an unwanted unbeliever determined to discover the truth about a dead woman. Branded a devil and greeted with violence, Moroni launches into an investigation that leads him into a smoldering thicket of rumor and concealment. Two people have already been killed. When the case turns brutally personal, there''s no going back, and Moroni will journey through hell to ensure that vengeance will be his.

Nicolette Scott is an archaeologist whose knowledge of early airplanes has won her kudos as an expert, a reputation for ignoring authority, and a job at the Smithsonian. Shortly after she begins working there, she is thrilled to be included in the museum''s latest project. E-Group, a large pharmaceutical company, is equipping an expedition to a remote region of Alaska, where a Japanese "Val" bomber plane was shot down during World War II. It''s a gamble, but the money is being provided, and if the small group of experts can locate the plane and somehow bring it back to Washington, it will be a coup—and a boost for Nicolette''s career.

Not long after the search begins, Nicolette is shocked to discover that there is a darker reason for E-Group''s generous sponsorship. The expedition''s real goal reaches all the way back to the great Spanish flu epidemic of 1918–1919, grimly nicknamed "the Spanish Lady," which killed millions around the world. The virus of this flu still exists in those few victims who are preserved in frozen ground—and once the pharmaceutical company learns that three World War I veterans searching Alaska for gold had died of the disease near the Val, they will do everything in their power to get their hands on the bodies.

Unless Nicolette risks her own life to defuse E-Group''s nefarious plan, the lives of hundreds of millions will be at stake.

"How many times have I told you? Never get involved with the church hierarchy."

Words of wisdom, surely, but Moroni Traveler can''t seem to take his father''s advice. Salt Lake City private investigators, Moroni and his father, Martin, maintain an uneasy truce with the Church of Latter-day Saints. But Moroni owes a debt to his boyhood friend Willis Tanner, now one of the top-ranking officials in the LDS, and Willis has come to collect. Lael Woolley, grandniece of the First Prophet, the head of the Mormon church on earth, has been kidnapped, and the prophet believes only Traveler, a gentile, can rescue her. Moroni agrees, although reluctantly—in Salt Lake City you just don''t say no to the LDS. He and his father set out to find Lael with carte blanche from the prophet and the assistance of three enterprising, offbeat drifters who live in the lobby of the Travelers'' office building. Their search takes them around the state and into the church''s extensive genealogical records, pointing to a subversive Mormon feminist group that may or may not be responsible for Lael''s disappearance.

"That car…belonged to a pair of bank robbers. Their names were Knute and Nora and they were almost as famous as Bonnie and Clyde during the Depression…They got killed in the Green River Massacre, but the car was never found."

"There''s more," Nick said. "This paper is dated more than a year before the Japanese attacked Pearl…And there''s a handwritten notation at the bottom: ''If need be, we must allow the Japanese to strike the first blow in order to unite the American people for the coming war,''…initialed ''FDR.''"

Nicolette Scott and her father are both archaeologists—but with differences. Professor Elliot Scott lives and breathes very early Americans, like the Anasazi. His digs are in the southwest, where the ancient peoples lived. To him, his daughter Nicky''s area of concern is not to be taken seriously. Nicky goes for the culture embodied by artifacts from the twentieth century—a crashed plane from either world war is enough to send her senses tingling. So when she discovers a 1937 Packard convertible hidden in a sealed cave in the Utah desert, she is ecstatic. It''s only when she begins to read through the papers hidden under a seat cushion that the thrill turns to something very like a chill. If those papers are genuine, they represent a huge find for Nick. But they also represent one of the most scandalous secrets in our country''s history.

Authentic or fake, they are still important to someone, as Nick learns when invisible threats start closing in, culminating in a murderous meeting under the blazing Utah sun. This is Nicolette''s most suspenseful dig, and one that will keep readers gasping and pages turning.

Ace shortstop Pepper Dalton has finally learned to hit—or so it seems to the good people of Salt Lake City. Moroni Traveler, a private eye named for an angel and cut from the same cloth as his hell-bent father, is hired to prove that Pepper did not kill his sister with a baseball bat. A boyhood hero of Moroni''s, Pepper is living, potbellied proof that the past, like everything else, just ain''t what it used to be.

While the Mormons use computers and private security men to keep tabs in their town, and Moroni''s former girlfriend pulls a paternity suit on Moroni''s father, the case of the ex-shortstop and his murdered sister is growing more sinister all the time. With a religious fanatic, a slick church lawyer, and an old ballplayer''s lifelong dream involved, Moroni knows this is a story about how the road to glory is paved with blood.

Major Lewis Stiles is dying of cancer, but he wants all his affairs in order before he is "called home." To that end he wants to hire Moroni Traveler and his father, Martin, to track down one of the prisoners he was responsible for during World War II. Unseen since his mysterious disappearance from the POW camp at Cowdery Junction, Utah, Karl Falke is still owed $132.07 in back pay, and Stiles wants Falke to receive his due. Knowing the chances of success are slim to none, Moroni is reluctant, but ever a soft touch for lost causes he takes the case. The search seems innocent enough, but as with any investigation in the promised land, the Travelers soon run up against the Latter-day Saints. Moroni''s childhood friend Willis Tanner, now a high-level bureaucrat in the church, continues to poke his nose into Traveler business, this time with the added incentive of keeping the prophet''s niece Lael Woolley out of trouble. While grappling with issues of family and responsibility, Moroni realizes that the answers to riddles from the past are to be found in the small towns and silent graveyards of Utah.