PRODUCT DESCRIPTION "Fans of Nevada Barr will love this book..." When a freight truck is hijacked, forensic geologists Cassie Oldfield and her partner Walter Shaws track the mineral trail into Death Valley. The stolen cargo they seek is hotter than the desert in radioactive waste. As scientists, Cassie and her partner Walter are familiar with background radiation in the rocks they study. But as a woman of child-bearing age and a man of advancing year, they become acutely aware of the risk of their hunt. How many exposures are too many? What's safe? More immediately, what's lethal? The geologists find out when the unstable radwaste thief unleashes the power of the unstable atom. REVIEWS "Fans of Nevada Barr will love this suspenseful literary mystery, where the brutal Death Valley landscape is as much a character as the renegade radworkers, dangerously eccentric desert rats, and dogged geologists trying to prevent a nuclear disaster." —Lisa Brackmann, author of the literary suspense novel ROCK PAPER TIGER, an Amazon 2010 Top 10 Mystery & Thriller Pick "In this superb, taut, action-packed thriller set in the California desert, a highway hijacking turns toxic and Cassie Oldfield, forensic geologist, is called in to help the FBI and the EPA's Radiological Emergency Response Team track down stolen casks of nuclear waste. Sophisticated soil analysis is not normally a deadly occupation, yet before it's all over, Cassie comes face to face with a sociopathic killer and with her own mortality. Notice to Watch out for Cassie! She knows where you've been. Fans of Nevada Barr are going to love this book just as much as I did." —Marcia Talley, Agatha and Anthony award-winning author of A QUIET DEATH and nine previous Hannah Ives mysteries "BADWATER is superb. It has a great plot with many twists and surprises, featuring real-life characters. The author did a very fine job of characterizing the disconnect between all the measures intended to assure safety and the reality of things sometimes being unsafe. Truly well-written and engaging. A joy to read." —David Lochbaum, head of the Nuclear Safety Project, Union of Concerned Scientists