ADVERTISEMENT
High Desert High
Steven Schindler, author
Undercover cop Paul Santo chased drug dealers and junkies through the worst parts of New York City during the worst of times. He did his job well and was decorated for it. But times have changed and so has Santo. After decades on the job he was fed up with the pressures from bosses and the street. He snapped one boozy night, retired the next day, and after a family tragedy, drove cross-country with his estranged daughter to begin a new life in the mysterious California high desert. Just as the Joshua trees reach up to the heavens, Paul’s journey transcends earthly ambitions when strange sightings could mean a path to enlightenment… or madness.
Reviews
In this sharp novel, Schindler does a fine job creating the believably gritty life and mind of a New York City cop, but the story stumbles as it moves into supernatural and religious realms. Paul Santo, a lieutenant detective who worked undercover in narcotics, walks off the job when he’s had enough of antipolice protesters (or antipolice attitudes) and retires. He’d had a distant relationship with his daughter, Tracy, now a young adult who is moving to southern California, and he decides to join her on the trip. Paul finds the desert to be entrancing, “Just a slowly disappearing racket of humans and machines,” and he settles in Joshua Tree, Calif. Soon enough, his drinking becomes problematic, and strange events (such as what he thinks could be a UFO sighting) shake him—Paul can’t tell if he’s having religious experiences, alien visitations, or a nervous breakdown. He tries to build a relationship with Tracy, and also pursue his new neighbor Kate, but instead, he withdraws into the bottle. The only way he can find answers is to challenge himself, live as a better man, and believe what he feels. Though marred by a few implausible turns, this is a provocative physical and emotional trip. (BookLife)
