River of No Return
(Scribner)
by David Riley Bertsch
Vivid scenery and a likeable protagonist mark this second book in a series by David Riley Bertsch.
In River of No Return, Wyoming fishing guide Jake Trent – a former Department of Justice operative with a violent past that has left him emotionally scarred – must deal with a vixen who tries to lure him back to Washington, the kidnapping of his friend's girlfriend and a nefarious population-control plot.
River of No Return is a breezy read with locales that shift from Jackson Hole to China, Washington and Idaho, but it suffers from plot twists that at times seem thin and stretch plausibility.
Bertsch, who himself is a fly-fishing guide and whose first novel in this series, Death Canyon, was published in 2013, has placed himself among a growing list of Wyoming thriller and mystery writers, including C J Box and Craig Johnson.
* AP
