Books
Photo by Sarah Eslick
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Tom Eslick
19 Sugarbush Road
Wilmot, NH 03287
Mountain Peril
Rising to a height of more than 6,200 feet, New Hampshire’s Mount Washington is the tallest mountain in the northeastern United States. The weather is often horrific, the terrain treacherous. Add a lurking homicidal maniac to this dramatic setting and you can count on one thing: a gripping, action-packed read from Tom Eslick. When a boy is reported missing on Mount Washington, Will Buchanan—high school science teacher and part-time search-and-rescue volunteer—springs into action. The search takes a surprising turn when Will spots a torn piece of red shirt fluttering on a tree just off the trail. It belongs, he soon discovers, to a woman lying in a shallow grave nearby, the second woman to be found murdered on the mountain in the last month. Is there a connection between the two deaths? As Will and Laurie, his girlfriend and the local sheriff, begin their investigation, they discover something much more sinister was going on than they’d ever imagined. A blend of brilliantly rendered setting and expert storytelling, MOUNTAIN PERIL is another exhilarating mystery told with Eslick’s own brand of white-knuckle suspense.
Deadly Kin
You might call Will Buchanan a Renaissance man - high school science teacher, avid hiker, sensitive lover, and six feet of rugged good looks, wit, intellect, and forest savvy. His beat is New Hampshire's fabulous White Mountains, with their rushing waters, sun-dappled woods, and still, moonlit nights. This dramatic terrain is where Tom Eslick sets Deadly Kin. When Will's former girlfriend, Laurie, sheriff of Saxton Mills, asks him to chaperone her seventeen-year-old niece Erin on a brief hike to an overnight hut at Zealand Falls, Will promptly agrees - for try as he might, he just cannot forget Laurie. There, the lovely young Erin is scheduled to meet up with her brother, Josh, who has been hiking the Appalachian Trail. When Josh and Erin finally get together, Will is stunned to see them exchange passionate greetings. Is there more to this brother-sister relationship than meets the eye? Will wonders. When Josh mysteriously falls to his death the next morning, the questions become even more disturbing: Could such an experienced hiker have fallen? Was he pushed? The plot takes on as many twists and turns as a hike in the White Mountains, as Will, Laurie,and Erin are thrown into a tangled web of family relations and relentless mayhem that makes them, in heart-stopping mountain chase scenes, the quarry of an unlikely - yet familiar - killer.
Snow Kill
Chad Duquette's life has finally settled into a comfortable routine after the horror of losing his wife and unborn child in a random shootout: puttering about in his grandfather's house in Dunston, NH; plowing out his neighbors' driveways after snowstorms; responding to emergency calls as an EMT; looking after his stepbrother; staying with his girlfriend when their schedules permit; seeing his shrink when his personal demons overwhelm him. But all this vanishes the morning he responds to a routine "hunter shot" call--while attending the stricken man, Chad finds a 9mm automatic in the man's hand, which Chad puts in his own med kit; the man's buddy is murdered at the scene--and then that body disappears, as well as Chad's med kit. A few days later, another body is found, shot by the same 9mm Chad had taken from the first victim. All the victims have one thing in common: a pentagram tattooed on their thighs. Knowing that the police are circling in on him as the murderer, since the victims were all shot with the incriminating 9mm, Chad sets out to find out who they were, and what the pentagram signifies. He's too late: his stepbrother disappears; the police attempt to arrest him, and Chad takes off running--straight into the arms of his adversary.
Tracked in the Whites
Will Buchanan had been a science teacher for the Saxton Mills School, and the leader of the school's outdoor orientation backpacking trip in the White Mountains for many years when the daughter of an old friend, superstar singer Jonathan Tyler, is sent to the school and into Will's guide group. Dee Tyler is shy, quiet, and obviously intimidated by outdoor life, and Will takes pains to help her adjust during the first day of the vigorous mountain exploration. But his attention is constantly being distracted by his new teacher/guide Franco Delacorte. Franco is a rude obnoxious addition to the pleasant four-day hike in the woods with Will's charges. Thoroughly disgusted with him, Will walks away from camp on the third night for some well-deserved peace and quiet. When he returns, Dee Tyler has disappeared, and Franco points an accusing finger at Will for leaving the group alone. Later, Dee's nude body is discovered almost lovingly preserved and positioned on a high peak. Will is the prime suspect and is arrested for her murder, but he escapes and takes off into the woods, guessing that the one who set him up will follow. Filled with breathtaking descriptions of the White Mountains of New Hampshire, the novel acts as a practical guide to hiking, scouting, mountain and rock climbing, and the reader is pulled along at a feverish pace as Tom Eslick expertly crafts page-turning excitement that leads to a dramatic cliff-hanging finish.