AWOL Thriller

Everyone hikes the Trail for a reason. Some reasons are more deadly than others. After committing the most recent in a series of murders, Paul Leroux goes on the lam the last place the police would look for an out-of-shape chain-smoker. Haunted by his past, Desert Storm veteran Karl Bergman leaves his wife and home behind and sets out on the Appalachian Trail in search of something missing in his life. He never dreams that his quest will force him to confront a serial killer. When their paths collide, a tense battle of wills ensues. Will Leroux make it to Canada before the police can track him down? Can Bergman put his demons to rest and help stop him? And how many more people will die if he cannot? Written with an eye for the details only those who have hiked the Appalachian Trail can give, The Trail combines the solitary world of trail life with the harrowing story of two men desperately trying to escape their pasts.

Even in the wilderness, trouble seems to find Karl Bergman. Years after his run-in with a serial killer on the Appalachian Trail, Bergman sets out on a thru-hike of the Pacific Crest Trail with his dog, Blazer, with hopes of returning home a better man. But the discovery of a dead body on the outskirts of the Anza-Borrego Desert threatens to embroil Bergman in another violent chain of events with even higher stakes than his previous ordeal. This time his adversary is not just one man as the dead body appears to be linked to a drug cartel using mules to move product from Mexico to Canada. An uneasy alliance with a San Diego narcotics officer makes things more difficult, but when Bergman reconnects with his estranged son Kenny, a sophomore at UCLA, he puts both of them in grave danger that can only be escaped by bringing down the cartel's operation.

In this newest Awol hiking thriller, Karl Bergman, whose trail name is Awol, begins to thru-hike the 3,100-mile-long Continental Divide Trail at the Mexican border. By the time Awol and his dog, Blazer, reach the Colorado Rockies, he has uncovered information about a terrorist plot. Awol asks his son, a graduate student at UCLA, to give details to old friend, Detective Vincent Sacco. Awol tells his son he doesn't want to get involved and continues his thru-hike. Awol is beyond annoyed when FBI agent, Diana Santos, finds him on the CDT and asks him to work with her and infiltrate.