Telling a story is a balancing act. You need to include enough of the right details to pull the reader in without drowning them in minutiae or swamping them with a tsunami of details that have no bearing on the plot. If you start with a main character who doesn’t embody the stereotype of hero, you need to make their pain believable and interesting while keeping them from lapsing into the category of “sad sack nobody wants to care about.”

Cam Torrens

Cam Torrens has mastered both of these balancing acts in his series of Tyler Zahn thrillers. The latest book, Damaged: Caught in the Undertow is the fourth in the series, a prequel that details how Zahn came to be the person he is. He starts as both a hero and a victim, having served his country admirably and well, a tested leader who can think on his feet. At the same time, his life has corkscrewed him into a place of lost confidence, lack of direction and a feeling of having lost everything that matters, all coupled with too many beers on too many nights to take the edge off of all that pain.

In Damaged, Zahn has recently located to Buena Vista, Colorado, which is where author Torrens lives and happens to be one of my own favorite places. There are enough situational details that readers who know Buena Vista will be nodding their heads, but not so many that unfamiliar readers will feel like strangers. The relaxed, small-town vibe, where everyone knows what is going on with everyone else, is like a plucked guitar string. It resonates but doesn’t overwhelm, never dissolving into stereotypes that leave you feeling that you’ve somehow dropped into Rod Serling’s version of Mayberry.

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Tyler Zahn, adrift and uncertain, has decided that he needs to make a positive impact on the world, and his method for reaching that goal is to volunteer with the local search and rescue operation. He’s also hoping quietly to reach a secondary goal of getting back in shape, figuring that hiking, climbing and snowshoeing through the mountains will be the kick-start he needs. The book opens with him on a training hike, and while he’s not tossing his cookies, neither is he racing up the mountain like a bighorn sheep. He’s winded, his heart is racing and he’s worried that his companions are going to realize he’s somehow not suited for the job. They rescue an injured hiker named Carrie, a salty woman of a certain age whose patience hasn’t improved by waiting in the snow with a broken ankle.

After Carrie is successfully removed from the mountain, the point of view switches to Galen Sullivan, a man driven by the desire for what he feels he deserves out of life. He has no problem with bending the law a little so that he might enjoy the finer things in life. He’s fairly certain he’s the smartest man in the room, and is just waiting for others to recognize that fact.

Much as Zahn is being tested for his new endeavor, so is Sullivan. A mysterious woman who cites a common friend meets him in a bar with a proposition, one that he initially finds impossible to accept. Having worked for the Denver Water utility, Sullivan is well aware of the contentious atmosphere surrounding water, or the lack thereof, in the state of Colorado. Throwing a monkey wrench into the system, in the form of a literal bomb thrown into a major water tunnel, is a daring move so huge that Sullivan can’t even contemplate it.

Or can he?

As the story progresses, we see Zahn, trying and failing and trying again, to make himself a better man, and to make the world a better place. Sullivan, on the other hand, has no sense of introspection past the lifestyle he could live with the three million dollars he’s been promised for destroying part of the Colorado water system.

How do these two disparate stories come together?

One of Zahn’s search and rescue trainers, Rick Perez, is a local deputy sheriff. As the friendship and trust between them grows, Perez begins to appreciate Zahn’s sharp thinking. This is not a case that you find in some mysteries of “cops are too stupid/stubborn/corrupt to solve the crime.” Rather, Zahn is able to look at the facts with a slightly different eye, analyze what he sees, and most importantly, question what doesn’t make sense. And Perez has the smarts to recognize Zahn’s talents and capabilities, and encourages those questions.

An escaped prisoner from a local prison kicks the story into a higher gear, especially once the link between the escapee and Sullivan is discovered. Thrown into the mix are Carrie, the cranky woman with the broken ankle, her hapless husband and a very large quantity of black-market explosives. Events begin to surge forward at an ever-increasing pace, like the build-up of a river under an unrelenting torrent of rain.

Will Zahn and the authorities untangle the plan with enough time to stop the bombings? Or will, the town downriver be swept away in an unprecidented surge of water? Read it and find out.