In the long anticipated companion to the award-winning Red Cloud Pistachios, the small rural town of Red Cloud, Arizona becomes the focus of murder and greed. Someone is buying up vast acres of land in the valley. But with the country in the midst of a deep recession and a killing drought, it makes no sense. And then a well digger for one of the area farms makes a terrible discovery: They're not buying land. They're buying what's under it. These Barren Hills is the story of the rise and fall of a town; the brutality of corporate greed, and the deadly consequences for those who get in the...

2011 Readers Favorite Gold Award Winner for General Fiction, and prizewinner in the Arizona Statewide Writers Contest. "Heslop captured the essence of a small town. He] allows the reader to peek in the windows and witness their grief, guilt, love...This book is a must read " Debra Gaynor, ReadersFavorite.com Broke and out of work, Joe Johnson abandons his 17-year old lover and ultimately the son she would have. And though the two remain friends and sometime lovers over the years, the boy is never told the truth about his father. But time and conscience are catching up with Johnson and a...