The Chala Project: Murder in the Grand Canyon (Barry Ross International Mystery)

Rating:
Summary: Danger lurks behind every crevice
Review: Ann Livesay has thrilled readers with three prior International thriller mysteries: The Isis Command, Death In The Amazon, and The Madman Of Mount Everest. Ann Livesay is a summa cum laude graduate in geology of the University of Illinois, as well as being a Phi Beta Kappa. However, when she applied to Glacier National Park in Montana for a summer job, she was turned down because of her gender. She was hired in Arizona, however, and has many years of experience at the Grand Canyon National Park there.

Barry Ross is Livesay's point-of-view character in The Chala Project. His wealthy aunt wants to help "clean up the world" with her millions, and Barry acts as her agent, taking on environmental cases. In this episode Barry and his protege, Joe Muck, are assigned to protect the controversial Hounto Chala, a West African office of the United Nations Environment Programme, who fulfills a lifelong dream of coming to Arizona to raft through Grand Canyon National Park. Chala has many enemies because he is an animal rights activist. Protecting him in a three raft entourage is almost impossible:

"'You'll never make it!' said Chief Ranger Lee Federico, bluntly, as we stood beside the placid Colorado River on an overcast morning. A bulky man, scarred, wrinkled, sunburnt, dark glasses hiding his eyes, Federico wasted no words. 'Don't get your hopes up, Barry. Everybody in all three rafts will be a sitting duck.'"
The Grand Canyon is one of America's treasures, and setting up an assassination attempt of an animal rights activist is about as chilling an experience as a reader could hope for. Danger lurks behind every crevice as the overworked and underpaid park rangers attempt to foil an enemy that can't be seen.

Lindsey is an expert at setting up exodic landscapes and providing chills and spills along the way. The Chala Project is a series of real-time cliff-hangars (with the cliffs described in tortuous detail). Joe Muck and Barry Ross are both sexy, intriguing personalities who apply their craft in a precise, sure to please manner. Lindsey doesn't disappoint with her fourth installment of Barry Ross, and this reviewer will anxiously wait for her next episode.