Synopses & Reviews
WINNER OF THE SAN DIEGO BOOK AWARD FOR MYSTERIES Funny, sharp, gritty Dahlgren Wallace is a Montana fly-fishing guide caught in the middle of a nasty war over land and history.
Dahlgren is a former college football star, a veteran of the first Gulf War, and a former member of the Marine Corps elite Force Recon. He thought he put the world of intrigue and special forces behind him by becoming a fly-fishing guide. Hes the river keeper and guide on an expansive, private Montana river, owned by a media mogul. When the novel opens, Dahlgren is guiding his bosss latest guest, a Mormon billionaire, down that river. It looks like an unexpected friendship is in the makinguntil the billionaire is bludgeoned to death, practically under Dahlgrens nose. By a twist of fateor is it?Dahlgren doesnt witness the murder. Instead, hes immediately suspected of the crime. He has been framed.
In an effort to defend himself, he must resort to the skills learned in Special Opsskills he had hoped hed never need again. As he delves further into the case, he finds himself embroiled with a band of neo-Nazi-type militia; a deadly serious, radical environmental movement; a colony of peaceful Hutterites; a kilt-wearing clandestine cattlemans organization; and the FBI. All the while, he is led down a twisted path of discovery and into the deepest recesses of Mormon history.
Full of action, humor, and tremendous suspense, and peopled with wonderfully surprising charactersfrom a Jewish deli-owner/scholar to the former beauty queen wife of the victimBlood Atonement is a winner. Tenutos agile style and lightning-fast pace will make the world impatient for the next Dahlgren Wallace mystery.
Review
"Tenuto succeeds in distinguishing his novel from the run-of-the-mill amateur-sleuth adventure by combining a full-bodied, multidimensional hero with a believable, detail-rich story. A strong debut that may make a fine series."
--Booklist "Blood Atonement is as crafty a piece of entertainment as anything I've read in a long while. It's imaginative, well plotted, cleverly structured, convincingly told, and enlivened by reference to some interesting and little-discussed events in the history of the American West. It's also quirky, irreverent, and populated by memorable characters who, in the tradition of this kind of novel, are a tad larger than life."--D.C. Ounty, California Fly Fisher
Review
"A quirky FBI agent and an avid angler from a Hutterite farming community show the author can create credible characters; hopefully, the sequel will contain more of them."--
Publishers Weekly"Hooking the reader as readily as his main character hooks a trout, the opening sentences of Tenuto's first mystery novel are a fluid and tempting lead into a book that is a unique blend of action, sport, suspense and place...The rich description invites readers to share the author's passion for fishing as well as a good mystery well-told. Hooked from the very first sentence, the reader is caught and held until the very end, and then carefully released - eager and ready to be hooked again for the next novel in the Dahlgren Wallace series."--ForeWord magazine
About the Author
Jim Tenuto, a 1975 graduate of the United States Naval Academy, lives in San Diego, California, with his wife, Lynn. His short fiction has appeared in
Grays Sporting Journal,
California Fly Fisher, and
Sporting Classics. He is currently at work on the second Dahlgren Wallace mystery,
Blood Knots.