Southern Utah's Kanab community is bitterly divided by the politics of land management. The conflict pits environmentalist David Greenbriar and his Escalante Environmental Wilderness Alliance (EEWA) against the Citizens for a Free West (CFW), led by powerful rancher Neil Eddins. But when Greenbriar's bullet-ridden body is found hanging from a barn near Kanab, Kane County Sheriff Charley Sutter turns to newly appointed Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Ranger J.D. Books for help in solving the murder. Books learns the victim's widow has been having an affair with another EEWA member, Lance Clayburn. Physical evidence recovered from the murder scene links Clayburn to the killing. Then Books discovers a possible witness: a reclusive teenager with a penchant for disappearing into the desert wilderness for prolonged periods. Another factor is the Las Vegas business conglomerate that owns valuable mineral rights in an area of the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. Books is scrambling to find a connection between these businesses and the murder. And then a contract killer appears in Kanab.... Michael Norman lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, with his wife Diane and their two pit bulls, Eddie and Joyce. On Deadly Ground is Norman's third novel, following Silent Witness and The Commission, one of Publishers Weekly's Best Books of 2007. www.michaelnormanauthor.com