Vivid, searching mystery of the American southwest.

Great for fans of David Guterson’s Snow Falling on Cedars, Ivy Pochoda’s Wonder Valley.

MYSTERY/THRILLER Things Unseen David T. Isaak | Utamatzi, Inc. 400p, e-book, $4.99, ISBN 978-1-958840-10-8

This literary page-turner sets a gripping mystery amid the gorgeous and barren High Desert (and its attendant “occultists, religious groups, UFO abductees, [and] hermits,” as one character puts it) near Joshua Tree as Walker Clayborne, a professor of geology, investigates the murder of his rebel younger sister. Even though the strongest clue at the start is a local seeker’s hallucination, that urgent mission demands getting to know her life with an intimacy he had never before managed as an adult, as he moves into her cottage, tracks down her ex-lovers, visits her church, and discovers that her impassioned activism had won the ire of Universal Waste, the company eager to build what would be “the largest single landfill site in the world.”

Isaak’s novel, written in 2002 and published with four others as part of an inspired posthumous project, will appeal to readers of smart, character-driven mysteries with lots of feeling, a strong sense of place, and opportunities for reflection. The cops suggest that Walker not nose around, and he’s soon attacked by a stranger, threatened by waste-company lawyers, and invited by a visionary physicist to oversee a mysterious experiment. Walker’s colloquies with that physicist, like many of his discussions with the locals, are searching and unsettling in a way that suits the milieu: in places like Mojave, the mind naturally ranges beyond the concrete.

But despite the characters’ spirituality, Things Unseen is beautifully down to Earth. Isaak takes advantage of Walker’s profession to capture landscapes with gorgeous precision, and he brings the same qualities to his handling of local politics and police work, Christian bikers and other hardscrabble residents, and the occasional burst of ugly violence or emotional catharsis. That richness means the novel is a touch long for a mystery, but Isaak deftly builds momentum and suspense while digging deep into character and place, with even the subdued not-quite-a-romance reading as touchingly human. This is a smart, moving pleasure.

Cover: A | Design & typography: A | Illustrations: – Editing: A | Marketing copy: A