Into Thin Air [Mass Market Paperback]

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback
• Publisher: Dell (1995)
• ASIN: B001E2T86K
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

More About the Author

Thomas Zigal (1948) was born in Galveston, Texas, and grew up in nearby Texas City. He received a B.A. in English from the University of Texas at Austin and an M.A. in Creative Writing from Stanford. He is the author of the critically acclaimed Kurt Muller mystery series set in Aspen, Colorado, and a thriller entitled The White League set in New Orleans. He has published short stories and book reviews in literary magazines and fiction anthologies for the past 30 years. Zigal lives in Austin, Texas.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining and Fast Read, March 11, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Into Thin Air (Paperback)

Unlike the shopper from Carpenteria (reveiw below or above). I really enjoyed the book. I love mystery novels and had never read a Kurt Muller mystery prior to In To Thin Air. This book is easy to get into and I thoroughly enjoyed the "hippie" sheriff. Try it you might like it. I did.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Love this series, July 15, 2008

By 

Armchair Interviews (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Into Thin Air (Kurt Muller Mysteries) (Paperback)

I have so enjoyed my discovery of Thomas Zigal's Kurt Muller mystery series this year. I read them backward (the latest one first, etc.) until I reached his first one, Into Thin Air.

Ten years ago the Rabid Skunk Party, "angered by the rampant greed of real-estate developers and back-room chicanery in city government," formed to take back Aspen, Colorado. They didn't have much luck, in fact they lost every seat but one: sheriff. Kurt Muller not only won the seat but has been re-elected ever since. He runs the Pitkin County Sheriff Department with a less-than-iron fist. Still, everyone adores him.

Attending the Global Unity Conference are Argentina journalist Omar Quirfgo and Dr. Garciela Rojas. Quirfgo turns up dead; Rojas is missing. Now the Feds have showed up to stick their noses into the sheriff's case. The Feds hit a house full of illegal Latino immigrants and that's when all hell breaks loose.

Originally published in 1995 (and re-printed by The Toby Press in 2005), Zigal explores the problems of illegal immigration years before it was brought into the national consciousness.

Into Thin Air filled in the missing pieces of the puzzle that I didn't have since I started with Pariah, then moved to Hardrock Stiff. Interesting and surprising information came out about why Kurt's wife abandoned their marriage and their five-year-old son, Lennon, and details about the death of Kurt's older brother, Burt. The ex-wife is nobler than I imagined. On the other hand, there are some bombshells that are forcing me to re-think how I feel about Kurt's thinly-disguised hero worship of his big brother. Here we get the most of the details about Burt's death.

One thing that sent me to the Internet to do a little research was the mention of the Ted Bundy case. I remembered that he had been executed in Florida in the 1970s, but I had forgotten the Colorado connection. Colorado was in the second wave of Bundy killings, and he managed to escape from an Aspen jail-a piece of American crime history that could have used a little more information.

Armchair Interviews says: An excellent series, best read in order to have the full backstory.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars FABULOUS, April 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Into Thin Air (Paperback)

What a great adventure. A great true tale