The Vanishing Track

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Description

When his best friend, and advocate for the homeless, Denman Scott asks him to help stop the demolition of the Lucky Strike--a once majestic hotel in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside that is now home to nearly three hundred of the city's least fortunate residents--Cole Blackwater gets more than he bargained for. Working with Vancouver Sun reporter Nancy Webber and street nurse Juliet Rose, Cole and Denman discover that homeless people in the area have been disappearing without a trace. As they venture into the dark corners of the city's underworld, and into political corruption at City Hall, they find themselves in the middle of a dangerous cabal of city officials, high-ranking cops, condo developers, and crime bosses. Can Cole and his friends unravel the mystery behind the Lucky Strike--before any more of the Eastside's homeless find themselves on the vanishing track Tackling the real big-city issues of housing shortages, political corruption, and murder, The Vanishing Track is the third Cole Blackwater Mystery and the most compelling yet.

Reviews

"The soul of The Vanishing Track is in the dialogue: it shapes the raw tension, exposes the layers of greed and cover-up ... The portrayal is clear; the action sharp and brutal ... The Cole Blackwater stories are among the most riveting today, and The Vanishing Track is the best yet in this intensely dramatic series." -The Hamilton Spectator "Even though the source material lends itself to preaching and moralizing, Legault wisely sticks to telling a good story. The Vanishing Track made me want to track down the first two Cole Blackwater books and, even better, has me curious about what's next for him and his friends." -National Post "[The] best in the Cole Blackwater series." -The Globe and Mail "A brutally honest look at life on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. A really great read." -Senator Larry Campbell, co-author of A Thousand Dreams

Author Bio

Stephen Legault is a full-time conservation activist, writer, photographer and organizational development consultant. He is the author of Carry Tiger to Mountain: The Tao of Activism and Leadership, which he wrote based on his experience using the Tao Te Ching as a guide to his lifelong work to protect wilderness and wildlife, and Running Toward Stillness, a meditation on Buddhist spiritual practice, running and parenthood. Stephen is also the author of a number of historical and environmentally themed mysteries, including The End of the Line and The Third Riel Conspiracy, featuring Durrant Wallace, a sergeant with the North West Mounted Police in the late 1800s; The Slickrock Paradox, a Red Rock Canyon Mystery set in Utah's Canyonlands region; and The Vanishing Track, the most recent mystery featuring Cole Blackwater, an environmentalist who finds himself solving crimes. He is currently working on new books of photography, essays on spirituality and more mystery novels. He lives in Canmore, Alberta, with his wife, Jenn, and two children, Rio and Silas.