Sheriff Ulysses Walker

Sheriff Ulysses Walker of Taos County investigates a killer with a delusional vendetta stalking meditators at Sleeping Tiger Zen Center. As he pursues the murderer through the backcountry, Ulysses quickly finds himself and those he is supposed to protect in mortal danger.

Ulysses Walker, Sheriff of Taos County, is facing a tough re-election campaign against a well-funded opponent when a respected historian and acequiero. The murder looks like a dispute over shared irrigation water at first. But after two more murders the sheriff uncovers a web of corruption born out of New Mexico's troubled history. Sheriff Walker, with help from Ray Pando, Picuris Tribal Council Member, and LizBeth Tallichet of the FBI, must battle powerful and well-connected adversaries who want to enrich themselves by gaining rights to scarce water and land distressed by forest fires. These current day criminals, like the Santa Fe Ring before them, commit murder and mayhem with impunity. Sheriff Walker's battle to prevail culminates in a deadly chase down the Rio Grande's notorious whitewater, the Taos Box.

The United States is in turmoil nine months after an assassination attempt targeting the new president. Texas, home to the unsuccessful Nationalist Party candidate, has seceded from the Union, and other states are poised to follow. In Santa Fe, a priest who is an anti-nuclear activist is murdered. In Taos County, Sheriff Ulysses Walker investigates the murder of a young man associated with Nuclear Peace and Justice. Meanwhile, at Picuris Pueblo, Governor Ray Pando has a new neighbor-a religious cult called "The Elect," a group closely aligned with the insurgent Nationalist Party. When high-level nuclear waste goes missing from Los Alamos National Lab, Ulysses, Ray, and FBI agent LizBeth Tallichet start to connect the dots. Then, Ulysses learns that an even more dangerous threat, weapons-grade plutonium stolen from a facility in Wyoming, has reached Taos County. Nothing less than a civil war is at stake. Ulysses must race against time to neutralize the threat. The entire country is at risk, and Ulysses finds his life on the line. C. R. Koons is the author of the Sheriff Ulysses Walker mystery series, three novels set in northern New Mexico where she has lived for twenty-five years. Koons has published a popular work of nonfiction, The Mindfulness Solution for Intense Emotions, and a book of poetry, Bourbon and Branch Water. She lives on the Embudo River in Dixon, New Mexico with her husband and cat. C.R. Koons is the pen name for Cedar Koons.