In a world of Long Island mediums, “dudes who cross over,” and horoscopes that auto-Tweet, Gus Parker is the real deal. His visions might be murky, but they mean something. That’s why Detective Alex Mills needs his help. Someone is filling the desert caves around Phoenix with bodies—a madman who, in a taunting ritual, is leaving behind a record of his crimes etched into the stone.

Set in the rugged, majestic landscape of the Valley of the Sun, Desert Remains leads Mills and Parker into the mystical world of petroglyphs—crude drawings from an ancient civilization that seem to have inspired the dark, haunted mind of a serial killer.

When Parker sees the crime scenes, he sees visions of a house on fire and a screaming child.  With no leads and no suspects, Mills sees a case spinning out of control. City leaders want the case solved yesterday, and another detective wants to elbow Mills out of the way. As the body count rises, Gus Parker struggles to interpret his psychic messages, knowing that the killer is one step ahead, knowing that in this vast desert, the next murder could happen anywhere. Mills suspects that with every news crew, every bleeding headline, and every dead end, he is one step closer to reassignment. It doesn’t help that a family crisis almost pushes him to the breaking point. Nor does it help that Parker, who’s always been unlucky in love, finds himself the prey of a lovelorn stalker who is Fifty Shades of Crazy.

Desert Remains swerves past the gloriously scenic, ricochets off the darkly absurd, and hurls Gus Parker and Alex Mills into a trap they may very well not survive.

Steven Cooper is a former investigative reporter. His work has earned him multiple Emmy Awards and nominations, as well as a national Edward R. Murrow award, and numerous honors from the Associated Press. He taught for five years in the English department at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida.  Born and raised in Massachusetts, Steven has lived a bit like a nomad, working TV gigs in New England, Arizona and Florida, and following stories around the globe.