From debut author Cam Torrens comes a gut-wrenching suspense novel based on an actual missing person case.
A 911 call sends Search & Rescue on a search for a missing girl in the Collegiate Peaks. They find a child…but not the one they seek.
Air Force pilot Tyler Zahn’s life disintegrated when he lost his son. He discarded his family, his career, and his dignity, finding solace in apathy and beer. Eight years later, armed with new confidence, he invites his estranged daughter, Daria, to visit his Rocky Mountain home. Zahn tries too hard to mend their relationship, and as the tension between father and daughter increases, forgiveness seems out of reach. Especially when his Search & Rescue work pulls him away from Daria and she finds romance at the church camp next door.
But Zahn can’t get the missing girl he found—and the one he can’t find—out of his mind. Someone in this mountain valley is collecting children, and Zahn is gradually drawn into the case while still trying to break through to his daughter.
Then she disappears too.
Chaffee County Search & Rescue is known for finding lost people in the Rocky Mountain backcountry. But they’ve never lost one of their own before.
Cam Torrens, author of Stable, has written another psychological thriller that will have readers racing to answer the question…what happened to Kristee Li?
Veteran pilot Tyler Zahn is finally recovering from the tragedies that cost him his family and drove him from the Air Force, when his best friend, Kristee Li, disappears on a remote search and rescue mission. A massive effort to find her fails. No clues. No body. Kristee is presumed dead.
A fellow team member claims the disappearance is no accident and Zahn begins to question what really happened in the mountains. Who would have wanted Kristee dead? More importantly…why? Plagued with grief, Zahn probes for answers while slowly slipping into the familiar depression he’s worked so hard to escape.
False Summit proves when it comes to money, sexuality, and cultural norms, the truth is in short supply.
After his over-zealous efforts to find his missing Search & Rescue partner fail, Air Force veteran Tyler Zahn is on the outs with Chaffee County law enforcement. When valuable oil paintings are stolen during a heist on a high-altitude pass in the Colorado Rockies, Zahn is ordered to steer clear of the investigation.
But when Laura Coker Long–the artist he’s trying to date–has her most famous work stolen too, Zahn can’t help but get involved. Trapped by a wildfire in a mountain retreat with a group of art patrons, Laura and her family, and an FBI agent, Zahn’s search for the thief is hindered by more heinous crimes.
Zahn can’t afford to screw up again. But he has no choice. If he doesn’t step forward and lead, people may die.
2023 Pencraft Book Awards — 1st Place Fiction-Thriller-General
2023 Firebird Book Award — Winner
2023 Literary Titan Silver Book Award — Winner
2022 Indies Today Award — Finalist
2023 Best Thrillers Book Awards – Finalist
2023 Firebird Book Awards Winner – Suspense
2023 Literary Titan Silver Book Award Winner
2024 Hawthorne Prize – Short List