On the path to a journalism career that started with a bang, Brian Patrick Higgins played a part in the most warped Sunday Mass in the history of Catholicism; faked his own college graduation; found himself at the center of a riot of bat-wielding baseball players; narrowly missed a point-blank shot to the head; and found himself as an unwitting assistant to The Grim Reaper. In mourning following a litany of funerals, our protagonist meets the woman of his dreams on the very day he inaugurates what is now one of California's most popular hiking clubs. After decades of low-hanging fruit on the...