‘BIG MYSTERY’

Author’s new novel recounts 1998 southwestern Colorado manhunt

Editor’s note: Venue Plus continues “In Case You Didn’t Know,” a weekly feature with fun tidbits about New Mexicans and their projects.

Adam Jones has a way with words. Whether it’s writing scripts or a novel, it’s a process that is comfortable to him.

Jones released his first historical novel, “The Vendetta of Felipe Espinosa,” in 2014.

The New Mexico resident has been working on his latest, “Prisoner’s Cinema,” for am couple years. It will be released on April 22 by Black Rose Writing.

“This is another novel based on a true story,” Jones says.

“Prisoner’s Cinema” is based on a case in 1998 in which some men stole a water truck in southwestern Colorado.

Jones says the men were going to blow something up.

“There was speculation that it was going to be the Glen Canyon Dam,” he says. “Around the Moab area, they were pulled over. Right away, they opened fire. There was a big gunfight with police, and miraculously, these guys disappeared into the desert. Years later, their skeletons were found. It’s a really big mystery.”

Jones took the premise of the true crime and added a New Mexican twist to it.

“There’s a heavy supernatural presence to it,” he says. “It’s ‘Ruby Ridge’ meets ‘The Shining.’ ”

The title of the novel came from real life events, Jones says.

Prisoner’s cinema is the phenomenon of a “light show” of various colors that appear out of the darkness. The phenomenon is reported by prisoners confined to dark cells and by others kept in darkness, voluntarily or not, for long periods of time. It has also been reported by truck drivers, pilots and practitioners of intense meditation. Astronauts and other individuals who have been exposed to certain types of radiation have reported witnessing similar phenomena.

Jones set out to write something easier than his first book and quickly found it required a lot of research.

As he was writing, he switched publishers, which pushed the book release back.

“My first publisher pulled the plug on it in the 25th hour,” he says. “In the end, it was a blessing in disguise. I reread it and realized it wasn’t ready to be out in the world. I hired a freelance editor and rewrote it on his edits. I was able to sell the book to another publisher.”

Here are five things you probably didn’t know about Jones:

COURTESY OF ADAM JONES New Mexico author Adam Jones spent just over two years writing “Prisoner’s Cinema.”