HOVER POINT

Graeme Stockbridge is America's best TV journalist and nightly news anchor, unequalled in talent and charisma. He's at the height of his career.

But now, Graeme would like to drastically slow down whenever he's off the air. Rather than doing the news from the constant tumult of his network's studios, Graeme decides he wants to broadcast year-round from a small working ranch in semi-rural Idaho.

Instead of being caught in the noisy rush of big city life, he wants to continue his work but also to enjoy farming, ranching and nature while living near Hiram, a small Idaho town where neighborliness is key.

In his free time, Graeme wants to take long, traffic-free walks in the quiet countryside, try his hand at agriculture, rediscover photography, study birds, plants and insects, wander the canyons of the Snake River, enrich his marriage and further explore the meaning of his life.

Graeme's network resists his grand idea; his wife Lara, a noted architect, also resists; and his TV-pioneer father resists. On top of that, not everyone in the little town of Hiram is as welcoming as one might expect.

Far from it.

Hiram and the surrounding areas have many charming residents and more than a few slightly-oddball types, mostly harmless and often fun. But there are also those people who like to flaunt their rights under Idaho's open-carry law, those who like to challenge all levels of government and those who keep parts of their lives well-hidden-for good reason.

In seeking to move away from the ultra-fast pace of network news in Los Angeles and New York, Graeme sets in motion a serious of events which lead to tragedy, and which take him and Lara into a world of secrets and danger.

The novel goes behind the scenes into control rooms and studios during major television broadcasts, into the adrenalin-infused complexities of covering of a national news crisis, into the machinations of corporate boardrooms and out into the remarkable Idaho countryside-a world of dramatic scenery, incredible raptors and an amazing insect, the dragonfly.

HOVER POINT is told with Eric Wallace's usual flair, quiet humor and gorgeous prose. It is an intriguing mixture of drama, philosophical observations, lyricism, wit and suspense, with a great lineup of characters, including an operatic pathologist, an enigmatic sheriff, a sociopathic university professor and a border collie named, not without good reason, Trepidation.

Eric E. Wallace is the author of three anthologies of short stories and three novels, all published by BookLocker. His work has appeared in numerous literary journals and periodicals, including Writer's Digest, Alaska Magazine and The First Line, and online at many sites, including Idaho Magazine and Writersweekly.com