“The Outlaw From Newville: A Game Warden Henry Glance Novel”

It began quietly enough, on June 25, 1912, with the marriage of Preston Radcliff and Molly Bryer in Sacramento. Soon they drove to Orland and “headed west for twenty-two miles on a narrow dirt road. Crossing over Stony Creek, they wound through the foothills of Glenn County, and as the sun dipped below the mountains to the west, arrived in the tiny, picturesque hamlet of Newville.”

They are good people, but their son Willie, born four years later, is a bad seed. Cruel, self-centered, he loves to shoot just about any animal, especially deer out of season and big game in any season, and ignores the rules on fish catches. Years later, in the 1970s, he will cross paths with warden Henry Glance, who with wife Anne (whom he met at Chico State), lives in an old farmhouse west of Gridley.

Willie’s criminal enterprises, fueled by a big inheritance, will in the end involve destruction of a magnificent animal, one of about 150 existing on earth; an international incident involving the then-Soviet Union; and murder most foul. It’s all told in “The Outlaw From Newville: A Game Warden Henry Glance Novel” ($18.95 in paperback from Coffeetown Press; also available in ebook format) by Steven T. Callan (steventcallan.com).

Callan, a Palo Cedro resident, spent his high school days in Orland, graduated from Chico State, then in Shasta County concluded a thirty-year career as a game warden. 

Part One of the book features alternating chapters detailing Willie’s growing greed and Glance’s successful strategies as a game warden. The histories of both converge in Part Two, and the intricacies involved stretch all the way from the Butte County Jail to Far Eastern Russia. Callan presents mesmerizing procedural details of Glance’s investigations for the Department of Fish and Game (as it was named then). Glance can think like a poacher.

The wardens’ physical danger makes comeuppance all the sweeter.

Callan is Nancy Wiegman’s guest on Nancy’s Bookshelf on Northstate Public Radio, mynspr.org, Wednesday, August 13 at 10:00 a.m., repeated Sunday, August 17 at 8:00 p.m. He’ll be signing books at Chico’s Barnes & Noble on Saturday, August 23 at 11:00 a.m.