The Signal

Categories: Fiction

Here's another wonderful regional novel, The Signal, by Ron Carlson. 

Mack knows this is the last hiking trip he will get to make into the Wyoming mountains with his ex—Vonnie agreed to come when Mack was at his lowest, in jail for smashing her boyfriend’s windshield.

What Vonnie doesn’t know is that Mack has a second purpose for the trip.  He’s making some cash from a rather shady military man by tracking a signal from a downed aircraft.

What neither of them knows is that the trip is going to go terribly wrong.  Besides the secret of the aircraft, there’s a group of poachers on the mountain.  They’re willing to go to criminal lengths to keep their secret, too.

So what starts as a sweetly melancholy story of love lost in a gorgeously atmospheric mountain setting turns into a suspenseful cat and mouse tale.  Before winding up with sweet melancholy again as Mack gets them down from the mountain and gets his own life back on track again.

It’s wonderfully done.  There’s a lot packed into this short novel.