Tommy Smith High Country Noir Series

"Mr. Paul, a veteran rancher as well as an author, writes fine action scenes, and his descriptions of nature and animals can seem just as thrilling." —Tom Nolan, Wall Street Journal For readers of Craig Johnson and C. J. Box, a taut, fast-moving contemporary thriller that builds to an explosive, action-filled conclusion. The third book in the acclaimed western thriller series that debuted with Under Tower Peak—named one of the Ten Best Mysteries of the Year by the Wall Street Journal—See That My Grave Is Kept Clean once again features Iraq War sniper and Eastern Sierra packer Tommy Smith. With his new wife, Deputy Sheriff Sarah Cathcart, and their baby daughter, he is building a home and a new life as he opens his own pack outfit in the high country of his youth. When a young girl is reported lost in the canyon above their home, Tommy leads the search, but instead of the missing child, he discovers a corpse that may hold the key to a long-unsolved local bank theft and a fortune in stolen cash. The FBI is called in. Though Tommy tries not to get involved, the promise of easy money has lured unsavory characters from the hard streets of Reno, and speculation about the missing cash is undermining the social fabric of their little town. Facing threats to his family and the way of life he is fighting to preserve, Tommy must call on all his skills to uncover the connection between the missing girl and the long-dead body—a link that will inevitably lead to an explosive showdown deep in the Sierra wilderness.

This tautly written debut thriller was named one of the 10 Best Mysteries of 2013 by the Wall Street Journal. After two tours as a sniper in Iraq, Tommy Smith has returned to his former life as a cowboy and wilderness guide in California’s Sierra Nevada, hoping to reclaim the simplicity of his youth and heal the wounds the world can’t see. When, high on a mountain pass, he and his partner find the wrecked plane of a billionaire adventurer who disappeared months earlier, a seemingly innocent act triggers a breathtaking cycle of violence that threatens Tommy’s world. Soon he is enmeshed in the struggle between the billionaire’s trophy wife and wannabe drug lord son and their allies. Every effort to set things right draws him deeper into a bad situation and closer to needing those deadly skills that he had hoped to leave behind forever. With lean, efficient prose and dialogue that crackles with repartee, Bart Paul has written a contemporary thriller of steadily mounting suspense and ruthless action. He captures both the beauty of the high mountain wilderness and the laconic rhythms of the outfitters’ lives. In Tommy Smith he offers a protagonist whose cool competence, home-grown decency, and clarity of purpose in the face of danger suggest a brotherhood with heroes from the likes of Ernest Hemingway and Cormac McCarthy.

The follow-up to Under Tower Peak is another taut, fast-moving thriller that builds to an explosive, action-filled conclusion. Under Tower Peak was acclaimed by the Wall Street Journal as one of the Ten Best Mysteries of 2013. In this sequel, Tommy Smith, the Iraq War vet and former Eastern Sierra packer, is home from war after re-upping for a tour in Afghanistan. When his old friend Dave Cathcart disappears from his ranch, Tommy answers the call to help find him. What he learns is that his love for Dave's daughter, his old flame Sarah Cathcart, has never died, but the country where he grew up is undergoing change. Stockmen are selling off water rights to the highest bidder, rendering ranches barren and the community bitter, as drugs and a dangerous new element have moved in. When Sarah confides that her husband, a smooth-talking entrepreneur, has lost her trust and may not be all he seems, Tommy begins to investigate. Soon another disappearance leads to a gruesome discovery, and a brutal sequence of events takes Sarah and Tommy to old haunts in the high country, where once again he will need to call on his sniper's skills to save them both and to rescue her missing father. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fictionnovels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

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.