National Network for Equitable Library Service

What do you do when you inherit $330 million after taxes? If you’re New Mexico rancher Miles Waddell, you build a dream. Waddell’s dream is NightZone, an astronomy-based theme park complete with giant radio telescope, a bank of smaller scopes linked to a theater, five-star dining in a restaurant with retracting dome ceiling, a hotel/resort, tram car access and a narrow gauge steam locomotive to carry tourists to the mesa top. But the dream turns into a nightmare when two eco-terrorists chain-saw down power lines that feed the development. One of them is killed by a bucking power pole; the other escapes by car. From 20 miles away, retired Posadas Sheriff William K. Gastner spots a pair of headlights as the dead man’s companion speeds from the scene. Charges quickly include murder when the fleeing conspirator is stopped by a cop and guns the lawman down. Hours later a second shooting occurs when Gastner stops to assist Sgt. Jackie Taber during an unrelated traffic stop. Always the last to pull a trigger, the now 74-year-old Gastner becomes the focus of a second investigation by the District Attorney and Sheriff’s Department. While Wadell’s troubles with rumor-mongers and anti-government thugs continue, security for NightZone becomes essential. But Gastner is unwilling to take the job. Besides, Gastner’s godson, 13-year-old musical prodigy Francisco Guzman, is scheduled to perform in a concert in Posadas. The timing could not be worse with Gastner and the whole community tangling with lethal avengers and agendas.