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  Home Page » A&E » Author Makes Mining A Thriller

Author makes mining a thriller

by Ted Holteen
Arts & Entertainment Editor Blake Crouch isn't the first aspiring writer to leave the East Coast for the West with dreams of becoming a bona fide professional. What separates him from most is that he's actually done it, and done it well.

Crouch's third novel, Abandon, will be released worldwide by Minotaur Books on Tuesday. It's a page-turning mystery-thriller set high in the San Juan Mountains, and few who have never met the author would believe it's the work of a 30-year-old North Carolina native and Chapel Hill graduate who's lived in Durango for just six years. He made the move with his wife, Rebecca, and now is a true family man with a 4-year-old son and an infant daughter.

"I was trying to give readers an idea of what it means to be in the Rocky Mountains," Crouch said.

Durango wasn't exactly a place Crouch had always intended as a residence.

"I just picked Durango off the map, packed up a U-Haul and came out," he said.

After moving  here in 2003, Crouch embraced the mountain lifestyle. Abandon is evidence of the time he's spent in the high country. It's a departure from his first two novels, Desert Places and Locked Doors in geography only; all three of Crouch's novels are suspenseful and at times graphically violent, but not at the expense of a great story.

This time, however, he breaks from the comfort zone of writing about his home state and keeps all the action high above Silverton and Emerald Lake.

"I was on a book tour for Locked Doors (in 2005) in southern Arizona, and I had been creatively blocked," Crouch said. "Then I had an epiphany for some reason - I wanted to write a mining town book. ... It was a big undertaking, and ended up taking about two years of research."

Crouch's attention to detail in Abandon is proof that he became a full-time student of mining history. Drawing on the expertise of local historians, including Duane Smith (upon whom Crouch insists his professorial but deadbeat dad character Lawrence is not based), paranormal photographer Michael Richard, stacks of books about local history and many others, Crouch captures the feel of the exhilaration and isolation of life during the mining boom of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Abandon itself is a fictional town, but anyone who has ever visited Animas Forks can get a pretty good idea of what Crouch had in mind for his primary setting. The rugged, craggy terrain at and above the tree line also is brought vividly to life, a task that could be accomplished only by a man who made those climbs himself and has the talent to tell others about it through the written word.

For Crouch, however, that was the easy part.

"I'd be up climbing anyway, so that's not work for me," he said.

Set alternately in the present-day and 1893, the town of Ab-andon is the mystery. Every resident of the town disappeared one night during the mining heyday, and more than 100 years later a small team of overly curious truth-seekers heads up into the still-unforgiving mountains to find out what happened to them. As it turns out, there's much more to their motivation than appears on the surface.

Durangoans will have fun with the local color; the two main characters have a beer at Steamworks and spend the night at the DoubleTree Hotel while the whistle of the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad blares in the background and the story reaches its climax on Greene Street in Silverton.

There are far too many twists, turns and surprises to give away any more, but suffice to say it's a tale of treachery and greed told in a back-to-front style that keeps readers guessing until the very end.

ted@durangoherald.com