We Bring You an Hour of Darkness
A Novel
By Michael Bourne
288 pages.
October 2025. Paperback.
$19.95 | 9781954600263
Audiobook available from Google Play Books
Narrated by Andrew Litzky
$16.95
A CAPTIVATING SMALL-TOWN MYSTERY AND A BAND OF JOURNALISTS DETERMINED TO UNCOVER THE TRUTH.
“We Bring You an Hour of Darkness is my favorite kind of thriller — one that combines urgent social themes with smart dialogue and a page-turning mystery.” —Lauren Nossett, author of The Resemblance and The Professor
It’s 1993, and the ski company that runs Franklin, Colorado, plans to build a massive new resort in a pristine wilderness home to an endangered wildcat. When eco-terrorists begin a series of attacks on infrastructure and property, the FBI sets up a national task force. While the local police and politicians are melting down, five intrepid reporters at the town’s struggling newspaper must step in to solve the crime. With her newspaper on the brink of collapse, editor Tish Threadgill is under pressure from a rival publication to sell. But a local literary malcontent turns out to have a ringside seat to the eco-terrorist plot. While trying to stave off the town’s power brokers who would very much like her pesky paper gone, Tish soon finds the mystery at the heart of the attacks is far too close to home.
PRAISE
“Bourne, a former reporter at the Aspen Daily News, uses the 1998 eco-terrorism fire in Vail as inspiration for “An Hour of Darkness,” a novel set in a fictionalized 1993 Colorado mountain town. … Good guys always win in books like this [so] it’s fun to cheer on the locals back when we actually believed it was possible to stop development in our mountains.” —Denver Post
“With precision plot-making and the richly drawn characterization of a literary novel, Bourne has written a fulfilling page-turner.” —Kirsten Lunstrum, author of What We Do with the Wreckage and Swimming with Strangers
“[Bourne] has the ability to narrate a character’s deepest struggles and sincerest hopes with a clarity nearer to biography than fiction. […He] understands people, and perhaps most particularly, those living on the ragged edge of hope.” —Zyzzyva
“Part mystery, part eco-thriller, part historical fiction, We Bring You an Hour of Darkness is one compelling novel, combining a well-crafted plot with complicated characters I could root for. With fluid prose and a few surprising twists, Michael Bourne immerses his readers into this 1990s ski town and its band of intrepid reporters. A thoughtful and riveting read.” —Edan Lepucki, author of Time’s Mouth and California
“Full of colorful characters, Michael Bourne’s new novel immerses you in the weird realities of working for a scrappy newspaper in a Colorado ski town besieged by development pressure. We Bring You an Hour of Darkness moves fast and will leave you wanting more pages to turn.” —Brent Gardner-Smith, founder, Aspen Journalism
“Bourne’s novel is a mystery wrapped in layers of small-town politics and interpersonal grudges … with exactly the right amount of peril for his characters, strung out perfectly to keep the reader wanting more. .. We Bring You an Hour of Darkness, with its environmental wake-up call and ethical dilemmas, is a mystery novel that entertains while providing ample room for contemplation.” —BC Review
“The stakes are high for the Franklin Skiing Co., but also for Tish, the protagonist, and her hard-working staff at a feisty Western newspaper. Not only must they fight to get the story, but she must also fight to make payroll in light of pressure from the bank. The Flyer’s very existence could be on the line. The dedicated employees and the constant pressure they face offer a glimpse into the realities of a small-town newspaper. … Enjoyable and nonviolent.” —Kirkus Reviews
“The story is certainly reminiscent of life in a resort town, so much so that that familiarity was even a little jarring at times, reflecting contemporary issues that such places often experience.” —Sopris Sun
“Bourne’s crisp prose, sharply drawn characters, and keen and often humorous observations of mountain town life make this a compelling read. I loved this book, which made me homesick for newsrooms and for the West.” —Gwen Florio, author of Best Laid Plans and The Least Among Us
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael Bourne has been a contributor to the New York Times, The Economist, Tin House, and Literary Hub, among other publications, and has had his stories published widely in literary magazines. His debut novel Blithedale Canyon received rave reviews in Publishers Weekly, Zyzzyva, and Rain Taxi, which called it, “A clever blend of literary fiction with elements of crime and noir … [whose] cinematic quality comes from characters that demand a performance.” For this novel, Bourne draws on his experience as a reporter at the Aspen Daily News, the pages of which were filled with a witch’s brew of charismatic wanderers, frontiersmen and women, and charlatans who populate mountain ski towns. He lives in Vancouver, Canada, with his wife and son.
ABOUT THE NARRATOR
Andrew Litzky is an actor, theater producer and podcast editor who has been performing, doing voiceover work, and producing in Seattle, WA since 1990. He is a disabled person, living with the degenerative neurological syndrome Charcot-Marie-Tooth, CMT, similar to Muscular Distrophy. As Co-Founder of theater simple, Andrew has performed in and produced over 50 productions, has toured internationally, directed all technical matters, and created both indoor and outdoor “shoestring epics”, all the while performing at over 50 national and international festivals on three continents and logging well over 250,000 miles. Andrew has acted regionally with the Berkeley Repertory Theatre and at the Spoleto Festival (Charleston, SC), internationally throughout Canada, at the Adelaide Fringe Festival (AU) and Singapore Arts Festival, and locally with literally dozens of theater companies. He is grateful to and ever-so in awe of his co-conspirator in life and art, Llysa.