Eight months after his own brush with death over Alberta’s Cardinal Divide, Cole Blackwater has learned that his good friend and former client Archie Ravenwing is presumed dead on the waters of British Columbia’s Broughton Archipelago. Days before his disappearance, Ravenwing was on the brink of unravelling a corporate conspiracy surrounding an outbreak of sea lice that could decimate wild salmon along the BC coastline.

While Cole and newspaper reporter Nancy Webber search for answers, Cole is haunted by the dark secret surrounding his own father’s mysterious death. For Nancy Webber, whose long-forgotten feelings for Cole have risen to the surface again, getting to the bottom of Cole’s family history becomes both a professional and personal obsession.

The Darkening Archipelago, the second book of the Cole Blackwater series, is a race to keep both human souls and wild ecosystems from falling into darkness.

Praise for The Darkening Archipelago
"Raymond Chandler gave us Philip Marlowe, a world-weary investigator who solved murders with a quip and an eye for detail. Stephen Legault gives us Cole Blackwater, a hardboiled environmental investigator with a dark past and a fast right hook.... Like Chandler, Legault tells a story that is fast-paced and rich, revealing just enough to keep our eye following the ball under the cup."
~ Mayana C. Slobodian, Monday Magazine
"An exciting read.... His stories reveal true human conflict and emotion, and portray characters with varied opinions about current issues, such as how a town with no economy might look at salmon farming as an opportunity. Legault has no shortage of characters or ideas."
~ Steve Carey, Victoria Times-Colonist

Stephen Legault is a full-time conservation activist, writer, photographer, and organizational development consultant. He is 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 and The Glacier Gallows, the most recent mysteries featuring Cole Blackwater, an environmentalist who finds himself solving crimes. Stephen is also 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. 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. Visit Stephen online at stephenlegault.com and follow him on Twitter at @StephenLegault.

Stephen Legault's profile page