James C. Work grew up in his parents' cabin camp a mile from one of the entrance stations to Rocky Mountain National Park. He was a little boy with a bicycle and more freedom than can be imagined. Sometimes the RMNP rangers at "the gate" would put his bike in the back of their patrol pickup and give him a lift up the road. Sometimes a ranger would take winter lodgings at the family cabin camp. These clean-cut, upright men were his heroes, the National Park his playground. By the time he finished high school, he knew every trail, every stream and lake, and every ranger in the park. While in college, he earned summer money with the trail crew, the fire crew, and eventually by presenting campfire programs for the U.S. Forest Service.His mystery series set in the 1920s in Rocky Mountain National Park includes Unmentionable Murders; Small Delightful Murders; The Dunraven Hoard Murders; The Stones of Peril; The Mystery of the Missing Bierstadt; The Big Elk Murders (Encircle Publications, June 2023); The Lawn Lake Murders (October 2023); and new in May 2024, Down Fall River Dead.