Award-winning writer of Wyatt Earp, An American Odyssey, winner of the 2020 Will Rogers Medallion Award, a 2019 Spur Award Finalist and an “Editor’s Choice” by The Historical Novel Society Stoney St. Ney’s love interest, Abby, comes face to face with trauma in her North Carolina high school, when two students go on a shooting rampage in the library. Concerned about her safety, Stoney leaves Camp Itawa in the off-season to offer moral and physical support to Abby, but the local sheriff does not welcome Stoney’s presence. When the teenaged runaways avoid capture by law enforcement and disappear into the nearby Smoky Mountain National Park, Stoney and his Cherokee friend and mentor, Bobby Whitehorse, know that it is they who have the best chance of tracking down the two young outlaws. Even though "Mystery" is one of the most popular genres in the world of books, many literary authors will not go in that direction. My sense is that they consider mysteries to be too undignified, and so they don't want to be associated with them.  I can understand that to a degree, especially since the classic, hard-nosed detective has been repeated so many times by different writers. However, there were three authors who taught me a lot about writing through the mysteries they penned: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert B. Parker, and James Lee Burke.  Their protagonists were, respectively, a self-taught criminologist who played violin, a literary ex-boxer with culinary skills, and a policeman who carried around a host of demons from his past. I always knew I would write a mystery too, though it came out as a trilogy. Following the writer's golden rule of "write about what you know," I'm offering a new kind of hero. I've never worked in a lab, fought professionally, or been a policeman, but I have a history of 45 years working with summer camps . . . one of those being my own. So, guess who my protagonist is? He is a camp counselor in north Georgia who has been mentored by the full-blooded Cherokee maintenance man working at the camp. What kind of troubles can come his way to make these books compelling mysteries? Well, that's for you to discover if you open the cover and start reading. I think you'll find Stoney St. Ney, who specializes in the primitive skills of the Cherokee, to be a worthy addition to the pantheon of detectives who have come before him. I sincerely hope so. Mark Warren is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Georgia.    At Medicine Bow, his nationally renowned wilderness school in the mountains of Dahlonega, GA, he teaches nature classes and primitive survival skills. In 1980, The National Wildlife Federation named him Georgia's Conservation Educator of the Year. In 1998 Mark became the U.S. National Champion in whitewater canoeing, and in 1999 he won the World Championship Longbow title.   Mark has written extensively about nature for local and national magazines and has researched Western frontier history for more than 50 years presenting at museums and cultural centers around the country. He has 18 traditionally published books. He has been honored by the Spur Awards, The Historical Novel Society, the Will Rogers Medallion Awards, The New Mexico - Arizona Book Awards, and in 2022 Mark was honored with a Georgia Author of the Year Award for his book Song of the Horseman (the Literary Fiction Finalist.)