Angeles Crest

A college student vanishes after a vicious attack in her San Gabriel Mountains rental house. Seventy miles away, a man is savagely beaten in Laguna Beach. Bodies start turning up…

For the past three years, Vietnam vet and retired private detective, Rusty Banyan, has been spending his golden days riding the waves and enjoying the camaraderie of his surfing clan. One desperate, gut-wrenching call changes everything. Banyan picks up the L.A. County Sheriff's stalled investigation into the student’s disappearance with no motive, no ransom demand and no leads. With a penchant for throwing down on impulse, he begins rattling new and prior suspects on a relentless search that takes him from Laguna, across the inland valleys and into the fire-scarred Southern California mountains. But, the heinous truth is elusive.

And someone’s tracking him…someone who would do anything to protect a shocking secret.

Banyan finds himself on a journey into human nature's darker side through the desolate, scorched and treacherous landscapes of the soul, including his own…