The Bitter Past, a Mystery

Join us for a Book Signing!

When: July 22, 2023 | Book Signing: 1:00 – 3:00 PM

Where: The Atomic Museum | 755 E. Flamingo Road, Las Vegas, NV 89119

In the tradition of Craig Johnson and C. J. Box, Bruce Borgos’s The Bitter Past begins a compelling series set in the high desert of Nevada featuring Sheriff Porter Beck…

Porter Beck is the sheriff in the high desert of Nevada, north of Las Vegas. Born and raised there, he left to join the Army, where he worked in Intelligence, deep in the shadows in far off places. Now he’s back home, doing the same lawman’s job his father once did, before his father started to develop dementia. All is relatively quiet in this corner of the world, until an old, retired FBI agent is found killed. He was brutally tortured before he was killed and clues at the scene point to a mystery dating back to the early days of the nuclear age. If that wasn’t strange enough, a current FBI agent shows up to help Beck’s investigation.

In a case that unfolds in the past (the 1950s) and the present, it seems that a Russian spy infiltrated the nuclear testing site and now someone is looking for that long-ago, all-but forgotten person, who holds the key to what happened then and to the deadly goings on now.

“Compelling…This riveting debut has traces of Craig Johnson’s novels with the personal nuclear fallout in Betty Webb’s Desert Wind.” ~ Library Journal (starred)

“A clever, spy-flavored mystery…intelligent storytelling and well-drawn characters.” ~ Publisher’s Weekly

“A thrilling and assured debut, Bruce Borgos’ The Bitter Past is at once a high stakes tale of high treason in the high desert and an unflinching examination of the lasting scars that even the coldest of wars can leave behind.” ~ Chris Holm, Anthony Award-winning author of The Killing Kind and Child Zero

“A crisp jolt of cask-strength, 100-proof writing.” ~ Craig Johnson

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