Arriving in Dec., 2025: Darkness in the Redwoods

Neil’s first novel, Darkness in the Redwoods, is scheduled to appear in print in December, 2025. This mystery involves the interconnected cases of two missing women and multiple murders, and takes place during a rainy winter in North Valley.  The North Valley Police Department's  trustworthy and veteran team handling the cases are Inspector Kevin Valken (who appeared in three stories in Flashes of Lightning) and Detective Naomi Risling. Valken has unresolved grief about his wife and daughter being killed by a drunk driver three years before the novel begins, plus troubling dreams and PTSD from helping Risling catch a serial killer. Risling, a Hoopa tribal member, with Karuk and Yurok ancestors, grew up on the Hoopa Valley Reservation. She's smart, single, a well-respected sharpshooter, and angry that county law enforcement agencies don’t prioritize searching for missing or murdered indigenous people (MMIP), just white ones. 

The novel  occurs in and around the fictitious rural town of North Valley on California’s north coast. Residents and lovers of beautiful Humboldt County will place North Valley near Arcata, McKinleyville and Trinidad, but they must not expect to recognize all of the topography or locations, such as the Westcliff Overlook, the Valley Cafe or the North Valley Police Station. The names of multiple Humboldt County places are genuine, to add authenticity to fictitious characters, settings and events. But any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales, is coincidental and exists in the imagination of the readers or author.