He was investigating a mysterious mountainous area in the Southwest, intending to build a secluded home on top of one particular mesa around which rumors had long swirled. Hokart was an independently wealthy scientist, inventor, and businessman who made his fortune in electronics. Mike Raglan, a middle-aged man who specializes in paranormal investigations (and normally debunking the phenomena) has received urgent phone calls and mail from an old friend of his, Erik Hokart. Summoned to a dark desert plateau by the desperate letter of an old friend, renowned investigator Mike Raglan is slowly drawn into a world of mystery and violence, where he will ultimately learn the astonishing legacy of the Anasazi.ĭrawing on his expensive knowledge of Indian lore and mysticism, as well as his love for the Southwest's Four Corners country, Louis L'Amour has written an authentically detailed epic adventure that teaks his readers across the most extraordinary frontier they have ever experienced.The Haunted Mesa is a 1987 science fiction novel by American writer Louis L'Amour, set in the American Southwest amidst the ruins of the Anasazi. L'Amour's inspiration for The Haunted Mesa, his biggest hardcover bestseller ever, is a centuries-old enigma that has baffled historians: the sudden disappearance off that face of the earth of a race of Southwestern cliff dwellers the Navajo (Din'eh) called Anasazi. With the passion of a born adventurer and the storytelling skills that have made him one of the world's most popular novelists, Louis L'Amour now takes us beyond the laws of man and nature into a world of legend, danger and mysterious adventure. If you like Jim Butcher's stuff or Stephen King's, you will like this one. During his life, he did much more than I am ever likely to do. Louis L'Amour was getting on in years by 1987, and in fact, he died the very next year. This one perhaps has a few rough spots, which I can forgive. I am not really a big fan of the Western genre, though I have generally liked Louis L'Amour's work.

By whatever they are called, they are a sort of portal to another world. The idea is also referenced by Lovecraft, Burroughs and likely others I am unaware of. Jim Butcher calls them 'ways', Stephen King calls them 'thinnies'.

Basic to the story is that there are methods of getting from one universe or world to another that do not necessarily require any kind of artifact. It deals with the Anasazi and provides one answer to the burning question among many as to where they went. This is the only book in the science fiction genre that Louis L'amour ever wrote.

The Haunted Mesa by Louis L'Amour