“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.

"The Case Of The Missing Game Warden: A Henry Glance Mystery"

Before December 13, 1956, life was good for Norm Bettis, a California Fish and Game Warden living in Gridley with his wife, Martha. Then, at sixty-two, with creaking bones, he confronts a group of bad guys involved in an illegal duck hunting operation. Prized ducks were hidden inside turkeys and sold to Bay Area restaurants so big-ticket customers could have duck dinners. 

It is pouring rain in the Gridley area on that fateful day when Bettis and his patrol car simply disappear. More than a decade passes, and the case grows cold.

So begins "The Case Of The Missing Game Warden: A Henry Glance Mystery" ($16.95 in paperback from Coffeetown Press; also for Amazon Kindle), the first novel by Steven T. Callan (steventcallan.com). The Redding-area 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.

His two previous non-fiction books include the award-winning "The Game Warden's Son" and "Badges, Bears, and Eagles: The True-Life Adventures of a California Fish and Game Warden." 

Now, in novelistic form, he turns his attention to a young Temecula man named Henry Glance, whose baseball-scholarship hopes are dashed in the late Sixties when his hand is injured in an accident. Stanford is out, but Chico State College beckons.

As a kid, Henry had stopped two goose poachers near his Southern California home and heard about Bettis' strange disappearance from the game warden who arrived. Eventually Henry himself becomes a warden, assigned to the Gridley area and Bettis' old territory. Blessed with good sense (and a photographic memory), the twenty-something warden is convinced he can solve the mystery and bring some closure to Martha.

Callan's story is a fascinating blend of detective work and chance encounters, and the kind of intuition needed to turn those encounters into actionable evidence. The issue is not so much whodunit but what it takes to convince a jury. The procedural aspects of the case illuminate the life of the warden set against a backdrop of 1970s Chico--and Gridley, where Henry and his bride live, ready to take on what comes next.

True tales from a retired Shasta County game warden

In 1960 young Steven Callan and his family moved to Orland; a decade later he graduated from Chico State University. He was hired by the California Department of Fish and Game, became a patrol lieutenant, and transferred to Shasta County in 1981. His career in enforcement spans thirty years; along the way he became active in a host of environmental groups and now lives with his wife in Palo Cedro. His biography establishes his bona fides as a street-smart warden with a tale to tell.

Make that twenty-three tales. "Badges, Bears, and Eagles: The True-Life Adventures of a California Fish and Game Warden" ($13.95 in paperback from Coffeetown Press, callan.coffeetownpress.com; also available in Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook ebook formats) is a thrilling ride into the heart of bad guy country. Which is pretty much anywhere in the state, any place that people can abuse wildlife and habitats for a profit.

Callan will be signing copies at the Chico Costco this Friday, June 14, from 10:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. A recorded interview is set to air that Friday morning at 10:00 a.m. on Nancy's Bookshelf, with host Nancy Wiegman, on KCHO, 91.7 FM (Northstate Public Radio). The following month, on Thursday, July 25 at 7:00 p.m. look for a signing and presentation at Lyon Books in Chico.

The author has reconstructed his and other cases from memory, interviews and court documents. The result is a series of suspenseful, well-written procedurals in which good triumphs, but not without a lot of foot work and tense dealings with well armed scofflaws.

"The Eagle Case" opens the collection, telling the story out of the Redding regional Fish and Game office in 1985 involving threats to a warden; the killing and possession of a bald eagle, mountain lion, and ring-tailed cat--and that was for starters. The final story, "Bears and Bad Guys," is the longest and most complex, taking up the last quarter of the book. A note summarizes the tale: "In 1995, Lieutenant Steve Callan and Warden Dave Szody conducted a three-year undercover investigation into the unlawful killing of California black bears for their gallbladders, possibly the most successful wildlife related criminal investigation in California history."

It's compelling reading about true public service.