This atmospheric Alaskan mystery for fans of Paul Doiron, Jane Harper, and C.J. Box builds to a breakneck pace against the forbidding, majestic wilderness of America’s final frontier, as Deputy US Marshal Arliss Cutter searches for a stone-cold killer in western Alaska’s most remote Native village… "Cameron’s novels hook you from the first line, cement your eyes to the page, and grip your heart in a vice. I can’t think of another writer whose work I admire more." —WILLIAM KENT KRUEGER "A double-barreled blast of action, narrative, and impossible-to-fake authenticity.” —CJ BOX Winter comes early to the rural native community of Stone Cross, Alaska—and so does hunting season. Caribou and moose are a major source of food through the long, dark months ahead. But Arliss Cutter has come here for a very different game. A federal judge is receiving death threats and refuses protection. Cutter and his deputy Lola Teariki have been assigned to shadow him on his trip to this icy outland to make sure that he’s safe. But they quickly discover that no one is ever really safe in a place like this. And no one is above suspicion . . . When Cutter and Lola arrive, the village is already gripped with fear. A young couple has disappeared from their fishing lodge, just eight miles upriver. Their handyman has been found dead, next to a crude drawing of a mysterious symbol. To make matters worse, a dense fog has descended on the region, isolating the town from civilization. With the judge’s life still at risk, and two people still missing, Cutter and Lola have their work cut out for them. But navigating the small-town customs and blood-bound traditions of this close-knit community won’t be easy. When the secrets come out, the deadly hunt is on . . . “Looking for authentic action, suspense, drama, and mystery? Look no further than U.S. Marshals Service veteran Marc Cameron whose thrillers capture the visceral nature of life in the trenches as only one who has lived it truly can.”—JACK CARR “Cameron’s books are riveting page-turners.” —MARK GREANEY

Throughout the four hundred thousand years that humanity has been collecting fossils, sea urchin fossils, or echinoids, have continually been among the most prized, from the Paleolithic era, when they decorated flint axes, to today, when paleobiologists study them for clues to the earth’s history. In The Star-Crossed Stone, Kenneth J. McNamara, an expert on fossil echinoids, takes readers on an incredible fossil hunt, with stops in history, paleontology, folklore, mythology, art, religion, and much more. Beginning with prehistoric times, when urchin fossils were used as jewelry, McNamara reveals how the fossil crept into the religious and cultural lives of societies around the world—the roots of the familiar five-pointed star, for example, can be traced to the pattern found on urchins. But McNamara’s vision is even broader than that: using our knowledge of early habits of fossil collecting, he explores the evolution of the human mind itself, drawing striking conclusions about humanity’s earliest appreciation of beauty and the first stirrings of artistic expression. Along the way, the fossil becomes a nexus through which we meet brilliant eccentrics and visionary archaeologists and develop new insights into topics as seemingly disparate as hieroglyphics, Beowulf, and even church organs. An idiosyncratic celebration of science, nature, and human ingenuity, The Star-Crossed Stone is as charming and unforgettable as the fossil at its heart.

The Ruthwell Cross is one of the finest Anglo-Saxon high crosses that have come down to us. The longest epigraphic text in the Old English Runes Corpus is inscribed on two sides of the monument: it forms an alliterative poem, in which the Cross itself narrates the crucifixion episode. Parts of the inscription are irrevocably lost. This study establishes a historico-cultural context for the Ruthwell Cross’s texts and sculptures. It shows that The Ruthwell Crucifixion Poem is an integral part of a Christian artefact but also an independent text. Although its verses match closely with lines of The Dream of the Rood in the Vercelli Book, a comparative analysis gives new insight into their complex relationship. An annotated transliteration of the runes offers intriguing information for runologists. Detailed linguistic and metrical analyses finally yield a new reconstruction of the lost runes. All in all, this study takes a fresh look at the Ruthwell Cross and provides the first scholarly edition of the reconstructed Ruthwell Crucifixion Poem—one of the earliest religious poems of Anglo-Saxon England. It will be of interest to scholars and students of historical linguistics, medieval English literature and culture, art history, and archaeology.