Picnic in the ruins: a novel

Book Cover
Average Rating
Publisher
Varies, see individual formats and editions
Publication Date
Varies, see individual formats and editions
Language
English

Description

Named Best Mystery Thriller in the 2021 New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards  "Part mystery; part quirky, darkly funny, mayhem-filled thriller; and part meditation on what it means to 'own' land, artifacts, and the narrative of history in the West . . . A fast-paced, highly entertaining hybrid of Tony Hillerman and Edward Abbey." --Kirkus ReviewsAnthropologist Sophia Shepard is researching the impact of tourism on cultural sites in a remote national monument on the Utah-Arizona border when she crosses paths with two small-time criminals. The Ashdown brothers were hired to steal maps from a "collector" of Native American artifacts, but their ineptitude has alerted the local sheriff to their presence. Their employer, a former lobbyist seeking lucrative monument land that may soon be open to energy exploration, sends a fixer to clean up their mess. Suddenly, Sophia must put her theories to the test in the real world, and the stakes are higher than she could have ever imagined.What begins as a madcap caper across the RV-strewn vacation lands of southern Utah becomes a meditation on mythology, authenticity, the ethics of preservation, and one nagging question: Who owns the past?

More Details

Contributors
ISBN
9781640093225
9781640093232

Discover More

Also in this Series

Checking series information...

Published Reviews

Booklist Review

Blending dark comedy and crime fiction, Petersen examines a moment in time that exquisitely reveals timeless and far-reaching themes. Anthropologist Sophia Shepard spends a summer at the border between Utah and Arizona, researching the impact of tourism on the sacred sites of the region's Indigenous peoples. While there, she interacts with locals, tourists, and police, and learns of the mysterious death of a dentist who is also a caretaker of maps and artifacts. Criminal schemes surrounding his death expose motifs of preservation, decay and restoration, provenance and authenticity, and heritage stolen and displaced. Trapped between her own moral code and the shadowy motivations of desert outlaws, Sophia receives an unexpected invitation from an egomaniacal adversary determined to auction off cherished fragments of great antiquity. Throughout the novel's adrenaline-filled external conflicts, Sophia is simultaneously considering deep, universal questions: To whom does this treasure really belong? Who owns this land? And, ultimately, who owns history itself? Picnic in the Ruins is an excellent read for those who enjoy thrillers set in the Southwest and readers interested in the preservation of history and culture.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Powered by Syndetics

Publisher's Weekly Review

Petersen (It Needs to Look Like We Tried) serves up a rollicking mystery full of heroes, mystics, petty criminals, and evil capitalists on the border of Utah and Arizona. After the shadowy Kristine Frangos hires the local Ashdown brothers to steal some maps of ancient sites from amateur collector Bruce Cluff, Bruce and one of the maps go missing. Meanwhile, anthropologist Sophia Shepard and park ranger Paul Thrift are exploring ancient Pauite sites--Sophia for research, Paul for an ulterior motive involving a pilfered artifact. Thrown together with a German tourist on a mystical hero's quest, and helped by a reclusive savant called Dreamweaver, Sophia and Paul must outsmart an assassin hired by Frangos--who wants to pillage the sacred desert for minerals and more--to clean up the mess made by the Ashdowns. While a few too many coincidences pile on in the last pages, Peterson keeps up plenty of action and suspense while also offering philosophical insights on who owns the land. Petersen's offbeat adventure keeps the reader turning the pages. (Jan.)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Powered by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Petersen's tightly written mystery plays out over the vast, unforgiving terrain on the Utah-Arizona border with a lineup of unforgettable characters. While studying the ethics of preserving ancient artifacts, doctoral student Sophia Shepard crosses paths with self-taught collector Bruce Cluff. He regrets removing so many relics over the years and starts working from his hand-drawn maps and detailed notebook to return the ancient objects to their original sacred locations. The hapless Ashdown brothers, Lonnie and Byron, are hired by an energy company CEO looking for oil lease opportunities on national monument land to steal Cluff's maps and storehouse of rare Native American pots, stone tools, and weapons. But their clumsy efforts turn deadly, and the trail of destruction they wreak across federal lands with the CEO's fixer, Scissors, draws the attention of the local sheriff and the FBI. Add to the mix a German tourist who has left the Ranches, Relics, and Ruins tour on a quest for the "real" American West and an unethical journalist who repeatedly gums up the works, and the result is a frantic race to obtain the relics for good or bad. VERDICT Award winner Petersen (It Needs To Look Like We Tried; Long After Dark) delivers a fast-paced chase over a hostile landscape while underscoring the past and present threats to Native American antiquities. Hang on tight and enjoy the ride.--Donna Bettencourt, Mesa Cty. P.L., Grand Junction, CO

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Powered by Syndetics

Kirkus Book Review

The fourth novel by Petersen is part mystery; part quirky, darkly funny, mayhem-filled thriller; and part meditation on what it means to "own" land, artifacts, and the narrative of history in the West. Sophia Shepard is a Princeton anthropology Ph.D. student whose outspokenness has resulted in a kind of exile to remote southern Utah, where she's giving talks to busloads of visitors and studying tourist impacts on Native American sites. In Kanab she crosses paths with the Ashdowns, two sinister brothers, criminals who've botched a burglary, hastily half-covered the mess they made, and absconded with one of the artifact maps they were supposed to deliver. Soon a ruthless fixer--he's an ex--stage magician, the kind of amusing and fanciful touch that elevates this book--is on the Ashdowns' trail, and when Sophia stumbles across the brothers trying to excavate a back-country Paiute site with a stolen backhoe, hell breaks loose. Soon she--along with a roguish Department of the Interior agent she's befriended and a German dermatologist embarked on a hybrid of tourist jaunt and vision quest that has left him lost and disoriented in the desert--is being hunted by the fixer, too. Along the way they, and we, encounter a cybertech pioneer who's now a high-tech hermit; a famed video game deviser; a recently divorced small-town sheriff; a widow suffering the beginnings of dementia; and more. Petersen keeps piling on plot twists, eccentric characters, and well-described settings, and beneath the plot's pandemonium there's an intriguing meditation on "authenticity," on "ownership," and on the legacy of violence in the remote West. A fast-paced, highly entertaining hybrid of Tony Hillerman and Edward Abbey. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Powered by Syndetics

Booklist Reviews

Blending dark comedy and crime fiction, Petersen examines a moment in time that exquisitely reveals timeless and far-reaching themes. Anthropologist Sophia Shepard spends a summer at the border between Utah and Arizona, researching the impact of tourism on the sacred sites of the region's Indigenous peoples. While there, she interacts with locals, tourists, and police, and learns of the mysterious death of a dentist who is also a caretaker of maps and artifacts. Criminal schemes surrounding his death expose motifs of preservation, decay and restoration, provenance and authenticity, and heritage stolen and displaced. Trapped between her own moral code and the shadowy motivations of desert outlaws, Sophia receives an unexpected invitation from an egomaniacal adversary determined to auction off cherished fragments of great antiquity. Throughout the novel's adrenaline-filled external conflicts, Sophia is simultaneously considering deep, universal questions: To whom does this treasure really belong? Who owns this land? And, ultimately, who owns history itself? Picnic in the Ruins is an excellent read for those who enjoy thrillers set in the Southwest and readers interested in the preservation of history and culture. Copyright 2020 Booklist Reviews.

Copyright 2020 Booklist Reviews.
Powered by Content Cafe

Library Journal Reviews

In this latest from AWP Intro/Utah Arts-winning author Petersen, following It Needs To Look Like We Tried, ambitious grad student Sophia Shepard is studying the impact of tourism on key cultural sites along the Utah/Arizona border when she gets entangled with two minor crooks tasked with stealing a map from a local whose pothunting disrupts efforts to conserve Indigenous art and life. An edgy black comedy examining crucial issues of appropriation and antiquities theft in America.

Copyright 2020 Library Journal.

Copyright 2020 Library Journal.
Powered by Content Cafe

Library Journal Reviews

Petersen's tightly written mystery plays out over the vast, unforgiving terrain on the Utah-Arizona border with a lineup of unforgettable characters. While studying the ethics of preserving ancient artifacts, doctoral student Sophia Shepard crosses paths with self-taught collector Bruce Cluff. He regrets removing so many relics over the years and starts working from his hand-drawn maps and detailed notebook to return the ancient objects to their original sacred locations. The hapless Ashdown brothers, Lonnie and Byron, are hired by an energy company CEO looking for oil lease opportunities on national monument land to steal Cluff's maps and storehouse of rare Native American pots, stone tools, and weapons. But their clumsy efforts turn deadly, and the trail of destruction they wreak across federal lands with the CEO's fixer, Scissors, draws the attention of the local sheriff and the FBI. Add to the mix a German tourist who has left the Ranches, Relics, and Ruins tour on a quest for the "real" American West and an unethical journalist who repeatedly gums up the works, and the result is a frantic race to obtain the relics for good or bad. VERDICT Award winner Petersen (It Needs To Look Like We Tried; Long After Dark) delivers a fast-paced chase over a hostile landscape while underscoring the past and present threats to Native American antiquities. Hang on tight and enjoy the ride.—Donna Bettencourt, Mesa Cty. P.L., Grand Junction, CO

Copyright 2020 Library Journal.

Copyright 2020 Library Journal.
Powered by Content Cafe

Publishers Weekly Reviews

Petersen (It Needs to Look Like We Tried) serves up a rollicking mystery full of heroes, mystics, petty criminals, and evil capitalists on the border of Utah and Arizona. After the shadowy Kristine Frangos hires the local Ashdown brothers to steal some maps of ancient sites from amateur collector Bruce Cluff, Bruce and one of the maps go missing. Meanwhile, anthropologist Sophia Shepard and park ranger Paul Thrift are exploring ancient Pauite sites—Sophia for research, Paul for an ulterior motive involving a pilfered artifact. Thrown together with a German tourist on a mystical hero's quest, and helped by a reclusive savant called Dreamweaver, Sophia and Paul must outsmart an assassin hired by Frangos—who wants to pillage the sacred desert for minerals and more—to clean up the mess made by the Ashdowns. While a few too many coincidences pile on in the last pages, Peterson keeps up plenty of action and suspense while also offering philosophical insights on who owns the land. Petersen's offbeat adventure keeps the reader turning the pages. (Jan.)

Copyright 2020 Publishers Weekly.

Copyright 2020 Publishers Weekly.
Powered by Content Cafe

Reviews from GoodReads

Loading GoodReads Reviews.

Staff View

Loading Staff View.