A Park City resident and author is scheduled for a book signing on July 13 for his second book entitled, Heatwave. Melissa Allison has more:
Dolly’s Bookstore website describes Heatwave as, “a darkly humorous tale of murder, environmental activism and corrupt land development.”
The story is set in Park City and who better to write it than former owner of the Morning Ray restaurant on Main St. – Zack Matheson.
This is the second book Matheson has written withPark City as the setting and his character, Detective Lincoln Coulter also known as Link.
Matheson said the story starts with Link being called in for a homicide on his day off.
“Turns out the woman in question that is deceased now is an environmental activist and owner of a local yoga studio who has been found strangled to death with part of a yoga mat in her own yoga studio," Matheson said. "So it’s up to Link to figure out who exactly is behind this. And the more he digs – the more he finds that a very big development company called Sundial is probably behind this. Because Sundial, they’re the ones behind a vote that’s gonna come to the residents of Summit County. And this vote is basically whether or not to sell of a big portion of the Swaner Reserve to this company for development, specifically for low income housing.”
A huge conspiracy is revealed including a crooked Park City council member and two high ranking leaders of the Mormon Church.
Matheson said his inspiration came from the all too real, state of affairs in Park City.
“As prices go up and the workers of Park City continue to get driven out of town when they can’t afford to live here any longer, housing is a rarity and where are you going to build it?" Matheson asked. "There aren’t too many places around here to build it. And obviously the Swaner is protected land, but for the sake of fiction, what if?”
The event begins at 6:30 p.m. on July 13.
I’m Melissa Allison, KPCW News.