Little Demon Creek I

Clare thinks that the modern world is boring. In the real world, there's no way to be a hero and no romance fiery enough to burn cities. He escapes into the world of online gaming. But ordinary murder is still happening, and it couldn't be more real. It will take a modern hero, two boys, and a puppy to save the maiden slated to be the next victim.

A co-worker's murder seems to be an accident, but a document Clare Geckler stumbles upon in the computer system makes him think that it was murder. He begins to investigate. Could Bill Stott have fallen from the Bruneau Canyon rim by accident? By day, Clare is a computer systems manager for an Idaho corporation. By night, he's an online gamer, and he's a game writer as well. Clare's video game rough-out has just been purchased by one of the biggies—SuunitaCor of Tokyo. The fat contract means that he will never have to work again, but now he cannot quit his day job. He cannot lose access to the computer system and its clues. On the corporate computer system, Clare finds a map. The map leads him to a farmhouse and an overheard conversation, three words that burn into his brain: human sacrifice soon. His eleven-year-old nephew Greg and his friend Tommy find the map that leads to the farmhouse, investigate, and as a result, Tommy's mom is murdered. The boys witnessed the murder; the murderer is now after the boys and Clare himself. Online, Clare is Galen the Wise, leader of a group of fantasy gamers. Clare begins sending his team the information he gathers on the case, and he contacts a deputy sheriff in Owyhee County as well, Virgil Ward. Clare discovers the existence of a cult led by a robed figure he calls Silverman. Clare watches a secret ceremony in the high desert and learns that Silverman plans to kidnap a woman and kill her in what he calls the Red Ceremony. Galen's team is on it, and so are Ward, Greg, and Tommy.

Dana Stewart Quinney grew up in Ketchum, Idaho, and learned to flyfish, ride, and shoot as a child. Fascinated with the plants and animals of the mountains, she became an outdoor biologist, working as a conservationist in the Idaho high desert with special emphasis on small mammals and rare plants, and also teaching college students on field study expeditions to some of the wild places of the world. To Dana, everything is a story: why her grandpa shot a Hash Knife man in 1909 and what happens on the day of the spiders, how fireflies behave in the rainforest, how to raise baby pack rats, and what happened the time the Collies ate the cement. The author of many scientific publications, the young adult Scavenger Series, the Little Demon Creek Series, and her autobiography Wildflower Girl, she lives in Idaho with her husband and Shelties.