Rock Dance by Jack Ballard Jr. Fiction · Paperback · 164 pages ISBN 978-1-934081-15-0 · Publisher Direct Price: $11.00 Click on cover image to see full-size version

Search and Rescue Has Never Been So Dangerous

In a small Colorado town, Dusty Palmberg spends his days rock climbing and volunteering with the local search-and-rescue organization.

When an airplane goes down in the backcountry, SAR volunteers do what they've done hundreds of times before: they head out into the wilderness to save the victims. But the pilot's affiliation with the CIA means that what should have been a simple extraction turns into a disastrous multi-agency recovery operation in the middle of the season's first real snowstorm, and the rescuers themselves require rescuing.

When the airplane is buried by an avalanche, something in the pilot's luggage the CIA is desperate to get back is lost as well, and FBI agent Kelly Frey is ordered to retrieve the mysterious item. But to do that, he needs the help of somebody who really knows the backcountry, and before long, Dusty finds himself back in the wilderness.

Click here to read the first chapter of Rock Dance.

Jack Ballard Jr. has been involved in guiding, teaching, and working in the wilderness and mountains of the western U.S. for over thirty years. He was invited to join Rocky Mountain National Park Search and Rescue as a civilian volunteer and has been involved in SAR operations in Colorado since 1996. These experiences formed the basis for Rock Dance. He is finishing his PhD at Kent State University and teaches music production at Malone College.