Books

On a chilly autumn night in 1973, 11-year-old Amy Burridge eagerly rode with her 18-year-old sister, Becky, to a neighborhood grocery store in the small town of Casper, Wyoming. When they finished their shopping, they discovered a flat tire on Becky's car. Two men politely offered them a ride home. But they were not Good Samaritans.

THE DARKEST NIGHT is an intensely atmospheric portrait of people in a simple and safe place, forever changed by evil. It's the story of how one violent crime has echoed over decades in a small town. It's also a story of resilience in the human spirit. Humans were not intended to live behind walls, so we must find our place in a messy world ... or not truly live at all.

Praised by the Chicago Sun-Times, Rocky Mountain News, Denver Post, San Antonio Express-News, Publishers Weekly, Midwest Book Review and more as one of the best true-crime books of 2007.

"... An almost-hypnotic read, hard to look away from. ... This is a very, very, good book, written by a very, very, good writer. "

A modern classic that continues to gather a loyal readership, ANGEL FIRE is a haunting tale of two brothers on separate odysseys of self-discovery. Twenty-four years after war correspondent Daniel McLeod is killed in a Viet Cong ambush, his only brother Cassidy is mysteriously drawn to their Wyoming hometown, where he must confront a lifetime of his own ghosts. Their story is about how we seek equilibrium, a delicate balance between memory and the unknown, dislocation and homecoming, loss and restoration.

Set against the deceptive simplicity of a small town on the high plains, Angel Fire is a story of mythic proportions. It resonates with the rhythms of tales told for millennia, but they are written anew here, fresh as a Wyoming summer breeze. It resonates with the rhythms of a small town, the blessings of memory, and the pain of loss.

"Reminiscent of Charles Frazier's 'Cold Mountain' ... (Franscell's) themes involve a fresh approach to our rural roots as a font for the elusive American spirit."

Named One of the Top 25 Best Crime Fictions of 1999
POISONED PEN

Former Chicago Tribune crime reporter Jefferson Morgan is living his life-long dream of running a weekly newspaper, The Winchester Bullet, in the Wyoming town where he grew up. But when an infamous child-murderer comes home to die and begs Morgan to help clear his name, the dream becomes a nightmare. Under the gravest deadline of his life, amid an extraordinary backlash from his neighbors, readers and advertisers, Morgan struggles with his own conscience to tell a story no matter the consequences, digging deep into the town's past, and revealing a killer who's hidden himself for almost 50 years.

"Ron Franscell has undeniably hit his mark. His masterful storytelling strikes hard at the heart. It leaves his readers stunned one moment, and tenderly moved the next."

When a world-renowned forensic anthropologist comes to Winchester to examine the long-dead remains of a woman who claimed to be Etta Place — one of the Old West's most mysterious and legendary female outlaws — he's not expecting to find a man's headless corpse in her crypt. The grisly discovery plunges him and Jefferson Morgan into a shadowy and deadly world of satellite-savvy highway pirates, rural meth labs, computer hackers and old-fashioned corruption. And they might not survive the fall.

"Ron Franscell's THE OBITUARY is gorgeously written, complex and satisfying — a damn near perfect book."