We Bring You an Hour of Darkness - by Michael Bourne (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Cozy up with this page-turning ski town mystery as a band of determined journalists uncover the truth behind an eco-terrorist plot.​

"Crisp prose, sharply drawn characters, and keen and often humorous observations of mountain town life make this a compelling read. I LOVED THIS BOOK." -Gwen Florio, author of Best Laid Plans and The Least Among Us​

It's 1993, and the ski company that runs Franklin, Colorado, plans to build a massive new resort in a pristine wilderness home to an endangered wildcat. When eco-terrorists begin a series of attacks on infrastructure and property, the FBI sets up a national task force. While the local police and politicians are melting down, editor Tish Threadgill and her team of intrepid reporters are in a unique position to crack the case.​

With her newspaper on the brink of collapse, Tish is under pressure from a rival publication to sell. But a local literary malcontent turns out to have a ringside seat to the eco-terrorist plot. While trying to stave off the town's power brokers who would very much like her pesky paper gone, Tish soon finds the mystery at the heart of the attacks are far too close to home.​

Full of non-stop plot twists, nail-biting action, and colorful characters, We Bring You an Hour of Darkness will hook you from the first page.

Review Quotes

"Bourne, a former reporter at the Aspen Daily News, uses the 1998 eco-terrorism fire in Vail as inspiration for An Hour of Darkness, a novel set in a fictionalized 1993 Colorado mountain town. . . . Good guys always win in books like this [so] it's fun to cheer on the locals back when we actually believed it was possible to stop development in our mountains." -Denver Post

"The stakes are high for the Franklin Skiing Co., but also for Tish, the protagonist, and her hard-working staff at a feisty Western newspaper. Not only must they fight to get the story, but she must also fight to make payroll in the light of pressure from the bank. The Flyer's very existence could be on the line. . . . The dedicated employees and the constant pressure they face offer a glimpse into the realities of a small-town newspaper. Enjoyable and nonviolent." --Kirkus Reviews

"[Bourne] has the ability to narrate a character's deepest struggles and sincerest hopes with a clarity nearer to biography than fiction. . . . [He] understands people, and perhaps most particularly, those living on the ragged edge of hope." --Zyzzyva

"Bourne's novel is a mystery wrapped in layers of small-town politics and interpersonal grudges . . . with exactly the right amount of peril for his characters, strung out perfectly to keep the reader wanting more. . . . We Bring You an Hour of Darkness, with its environmental wake-up call and ethical dilemmas, is a mystery novel that entertains while providing ample room for contemplation." --BC Review

"Crisp prose, sharply drawn characters, and keen and often humorous observations of mountain town life make this a compelling read. I loved this book, which made me homesick for newsrooms and for the West." --Gwen Florio, author of Best Laid Plans and The Least Among Us

"With precision plot-making and the richly drawn characterization of a literary novel, Bourne has written a fulfilling page-turner." --Kirsten Lunstrum, author of What We Do with the Wreckage and Elita

"Part mystery, part eco-thriller, part historical fiction, We Bring You an Hour of Darkness is one compelling novel, combining a well-crafted plot with complicated characters I could root for. With fluid prose and a few surprising twists, Michael Bourne immerses his readers into this 1990s ski town and its band of intrepid reporters. A thoughtful and riveting read." --Edan Lepucki, author of Time's Mouth and California

"Combines urgent social themes with smart dialogue and a page-turning mystery." --Lauren Nossett, author of The Resemblance and The Professor

"Full of colorful characters, Michael Bourne's new novel immerses you in the weird realities of working for a scrappy newspaper in a Colorado ski town besieged by development pressure. We Bring You an Hour of Darkness moves fast and will leave you wanting more pages to turn." --Brent Gardner-Smith, founder, Aspen Journalism

Praise for Blithedale Canyon

"Michael Bourne's debut novel is an ode to the pleasures and pains of the return to the familiar, to the gravitational pulls of addiction, old friends, and Springsteen on a car stereo, but mostly of home. Blithedale Canyon is a tenderly nostalgic and page-turning portrait of a man who can't control his worst impulses, written by an author in full command of his own tools." --Teddy Wayne, author of The Love Song of Jonny Valentine and Loner

"We are surrounded by stories about winning, but where are all the great mo

"Bourne, a former reporter at the Aspen Daily News, uses the 1998 eco-terrorism fire in Vail as inspiration for An Hour of Darkness, a novel set in a fictionalized 1993 Colorado mountain town. . . . Good guys always win in books like this [so] it's fun to cheer on the locals back when we actually believed it was possible to stop development in our mountains." --Denver Post

"The stakes are high for the Franklin Skiing Co., but also for Tish, the protagonist, and her hard-working staff at a feisty Western newspaper. Not only must they fight to get the story, but she must also fight to make payroll in the light of pressure from the bank. The Flyer's very existence could be on the line. . . . The dedicated employees and the constant pressure they face offer a glimpse into the realities of a small-town newspaper. Enjoyable and nonviolent." --Kirkus Reviews

"[Bourne] has the ability to narrate a character's deepest struggles and sincerest hopes with a clarity nearer to biography than fiction. . . . [He] understands people, and perhaps most particularly, those living on the ragged edge of hope." --Zyzzyva

"Bourne's novel is a mystery wrapped in layers of small-town politics and interpersonal grudges . . . with exactly the right amount of peril for his characters, strung out perfectly to keep the reader wanting more. . . . We Bring You an Hour of Darkness, with its environmental wake-up call and ethical dilemmas, is a mystery novel that entertains while providing ample room for contemplation." --BC Review

"Crisp prose, sharply drawn characters, and keen and often humorous observations of mountain town life make this a compelling read. I loved this book, which made me homesick for newsrooms and for the West." --Gwen Florio, author of Best Laid Plans and The Least Among Us

"With precision plot-making and the richly drawn characterization of a literary novel, Bourne has written a fulfilling page-turner." --Kirsten Lunstrum, author of What We Do with the Wreckage and Elita

"Part mystery, part eco-thriller, part historical fiction, We Bring You an Hour of Darkness is one compelling novel, combining a well-crafted plot with complicated characters I could root for. With fluid prose and a few surprising twists, Michael Bourne immerses his readers into this 1990s ski town and its band of intrepid reporters. A thoughtful and riveting read." --Edan Lepucki, author of Time's Mouth and California

"Combines urgent social themes with smart dialogue and a page-turning mystery." --Lauren Nossett, author of The Resemblance and The Professor

"Full of colorful characters, Michael Bourne's new novel immerses you in the weird realities of working for a scrappy newspaper in a Colorado ski town besieged by development pressure. We Bring You an Hour of Darkness moves fast and will leave you wanting more pages to turn." --Brent Gardner-Smith, founder, Aspen Journalism

Praise for Blithedale Canyon

"Michael Bourne's debut novel is an ode to the pleasures and pains of the return to the familiar, to the gravitational pulls of addiction, old friends, and Springsteen on a car stereo, but mostly of home. Blithedale Canyon is a tenderly nostalgic and page-turning portrait of a man who can't control his worst impulses, written by an author in full command of his own tools." --Teddy Wayne, author of The Love Song of Jonny Valentine and Loner

"We are surrounded by stories about winning, but where are all the great modern novels about failure? . . . . Bourne is brave enough to be honest and honest enough to write an unvarnished truth. Blithedale Canyon brims with humor, it's cathartic, original, and lonely. It's a wild ride." --Claire Cameron, author of The Last Neanderthal and The Bear, a #1 Canadian bestseller

"Trent Wolfer is a screwup, but one so smart and observant and oddly self-aware that we can't help rooting for him. . . . The perfect story for our age of con artists and systemic scams." --Pamela Erens, author of Eleven Hours and The Virgins

"Blithedale Canyon is a hard look at the destruction of American capitalism in the lives of the privileged and the devoured. No one here is easy to love, and yet Bourne writes each of his damaged, difficult characters with a clear-eyed complexity that readers will recognize. By the last page, readers will be asking an essential question of our American moment: Can there be any redemption without honesty?" --Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum, author of What We Do With the Wreckage and This Life She's Chosen

"A vivid portrait of Northern California at the turn of the 21st century. . . . A story of love, addiction, regret, and hope. I couldn't put it down." --Edan Lupecki, author of California and Woman No. 17

"Michael Bourne's funny, edgy debut is a literary love story for every man who has ever wondered why he keeps smashing up the things he cares about, and for every woman who's ever wondered what was going on in the head of that guy she spent her twenties trying to fix. . . A clever blend of literary fiction with elements of crime and noir . . . [whose] cinematic quality comes from characters that demand a performance." --Rain Taxi

"An acute and vulnerable expression of male angst set in Mill Valley, Calif." --Publishers Weekly

About the Author

Author Michael Bourne has been a contributor to the New York Times, The Economist, Tin House, and Literary Hub, among other publications and had his stories published widely in literary magazines. His debut novel Blithedale Canyon received rave reviews in Publishers Weekly, Zyzzyva, and Rain Taxi, which called it, "A clever blend of literary fiction with elements of crime and noir ... [whose] cinematic quality comes from characters that demand a performance." For this novel, Bourne draws on his experience as a reporter at the Aspen Daily News, the pages of which were filled with a witch's brew of charismatic wanderers, frontiersmen and women, and charlatans who populate mountain ski towns. He lives in Vancouver, Canada, with his wife and son.