Trail of the Fallen

A suspense-filled western noir thriller set in California's Sierra mountains—for readers of Craig Johnson and C. J. Box.

Tommy Smith, former sniper and Army combat veteran, wants nothing more than to be left alone to raise his young family with his deputy-sheriff wife, Sarah, as they run a wilderness outfitting business in the eastern Sierra ranching country where they grew up.
 
A mass breakout at Folsom Prison shatters their mountain idyll and brings back the PTSD that Tommy hoped he'd left on the battlefields of Afghanistan. Although Folsom is a hundred fifty miles west, every new atrocity by the convicted killers places them closer and closer to Tommy and his family. The escape follows by some months the theft of prototype high-end sniper rifles from the nearby Marine base, a theft that the Corps was trying to keep as quiet as possible. Soon, Tommy discovers that the list of escapees includes a name he never wanted to hear again—that of Sarah's psychopathic first husband, whom Tommy had helped put in prison. Sidelined by law enforcement because of his closeness to the case, Tommy strikes out horseback and alone in a blizzard, where he must overcome his own demons to fight the all-too-real demon waiting for him up the trail.