Behind the Slickrock Curtain: A Project Petrichor Environmental Thriller: 1

In the not so distant future as the planet burns the nation reels from the effects of a pandemic Truth is on the brink of extinction and the late-president tweets madly from the grave Durango artist Peter Simons heads into Utahs Canyon Country to scout locations for his biggest project ever. When Peter fails to return on time and mercenaries working for the federal government start asking questions about him Peters wife Eliza Santos launches a search. She calls on Peters old friend and her ex-lover disgraced journalist and purveyor of fake news Malcolm Brautigan for help. As they search for Peter they unwittingly uncover a tangled scheme led by oligarchs an alluring petroleum engineer and corrupt government officials to ravage a sacred landscape with a tar sands operation. But the more they learn the more they suspect that it is merely a smokescreen for a much bigger operation involving a long-lost deposit of high-grade uranium. But are the perpetrators trying to destroy the planet? Or save it? And why are they so interested in Malcolms memories? Behind the Slickrock Curtain Part I of the Project Petrichor Environmental Thriller Series is a riveting racy irreverent romp through the Anthropocene and an insightful humorous and sometimes scathing exploration of eco-despair disinformation in the post-truth age love friendship and the power of memory and place.