Desert Reckoning: A Town Sheriff, a Mojave Hermit, and the Biggest Manhunt in Modern California History

by Deanne Stillman

North of Los Angeles - the studios, the beaches, Rodeo Drive - lies a sparsely populated region that comprises fully one half of Los Angeles County. Sprawling across 2200 miles, this shadow side of Los Angeles is in the high Mojave Desert. Known as the Antelope Valley, it's a terrain of savage dignity, a vast amphitheatre of startling wonders that put on a show as the megalopolis burrows northward into the region's last frontier. Ranchers, cowboys, dreamers, dropouts, bikers, hikers, and felons have settled here - those who have chosen solitude over the trappings of contemporary life or simply have nowhere else to go. But in recent years their lives have been encroached upon by the creeping spread of subdivisions, funded by the once easy money of subprime America. McMansions - many empty now - gradually replaced Joshua trees; the desert - America's escape hatch - began to vanish as it became home to a latter-day exodus of pilgrims.

It is against the backdrop of these two competing visions of land and space that Donald Kueck - a desert hermit who loved animals and hated civilization - took his last stand, gunning down beloved deputy sheriff Steven Sorensen when he approached his trailer at high noon on a scorching summer day. As the sound of rifle fire echoed across the Mojave, Kueck took off into the desert he knew so well, kicking off the biggest manhunt in modern California history until he was finally killed in a Wagnerian firestorm under a full moon as nuns at a nearby convent watched and prayed.

This manhunt was the subject of a widely praised article by Deanne Stillman, first published in Rolling Stone, a finalist for a PEN Center USA journalism award, and included in the anthology Best American Crime Writing 2006. In Desert Reckoning she continues her desert beat and uses Kueck's story as a point of departure to further explore our relationship to place and the wars that are playing out on our homeland. In addition, Stillman also delves into the hidden history of Los Angeles County, and traces the paths of two men on a collision course that could only end in the modern Wild West. Why did a brilliant, self-taught rocket scientist who just wanted to be left alone go off the rails when a cop showed up? What role did the California prison system play in this drama? What happens to people when the American dream is stripped away? And what is it like for the men who are sworn to protect and serve?

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction, Crime, History

322 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 3, 2012

About the author

Deanne Stillman is a widely published, critically acclaimed writer. Her books of narrative nonfiction are place-based stories of war and peace in the modern and historical West.

Reviews

[Phillip · Rating 1 out of 5]

Lots of "he could have been thinking this. Or maybe this. Also this could have happened." Bullshit journalism.

[E · Rating 2 out of 5]

Way too much superfluous material. Dump that, and it could have been a much more readable book.

[Dan Downing · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book grew out of a magazine article. I imagine the magazine told the story of how a desert rat killed a cop then eluded capture for a week until ending in an inferno. Fine. Good article.

The book seems to have grown by giving background on every person within sight of the killer ad the victim as well as any geographical area anyone happened to be involved with and also any historically significant event that ever happened within fifty miles of any of the foregoing.

This isn't to say the book is boring or poorly organized. It isn't. But there is just so much one wants to know about sad people doing sad things as they lose.

[Susie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found some of the book interesting but it’s hard to give more stars when I had to struggle wading through her writing that twisted and winded its way through the harsh but beautiful landscape that is the desert as she tried to describe the Antelope Valley with as many poetic adjectives as she could, and with as many fantasies of what might have happened or what he might have thought as the killer apparently communed with wildlife on ground and in the sky, and the snake told him things that she will never know but she guesses anyway... etc.

[Perri · Rating 1 out of 5]

Subtitle reads : A Town Sheriff, and Mojave Hermit, and the Biggest Manhunt in Modern California History. Sounds interesting, if it were only about that. Instead there are long pages devoted to desert history and those who are drawn to the desert-individuals and communes. Midway when I'm reading about the development and SWAT teams through the kidnapping and rescue of Patty Hearst, I'm ready to abandon the book. Started skimming ahead to see how the manhunt ends, but ended up not caring.

[Tiffany Hawk · Rating 5 out of 5]

The murder story is compelling on its own, but Desert Reckoning is so much more than a true-crime thriller. Stillman creates a fascinating portrait of the hinterlands surrounding L.A. and their diverse inhabitants. Although the in-depth reporting on seemingly peripheral characters can begin to feel excessive, it’s worth it and adds up to an unbelievably moving and powerful climax. I get chills just thinking about it. Whatever you do, don’t stop before the afterward (notes on writing this book), it’s perhaps more chilling than any other part.

[Gabrielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

The true story of the brutal murder of a cop in the Mohave desert and the massive seven day manhunt. Deanne Stillman is a painstaking researcher and you can't read any of her books without learning a lot about little known CA history. More importantly, she's the sympathetic chronicler of misfits, outcasts, crazies, druggies, loners, and lost souls who drew the short end of the stick a long time ago.

[Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a chore to get through. Writing was all over the place. Dealt more with the authors musings about the main characters thoughts instead of the facts. Ugh.

[Janet · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a story of a desert hermit and a sheriff and how their lives came together with a tragic outcome. Stillman tells the story of the murder and manhunt but also tells of the history of the area and the lives of the two men. A very interesting story.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

interesting story.

This was an interesting story that probably should have just remained a magazine article. In order to turn it into book length the author has to chase several rabbit trails of dubious worth. In addition the author has to do a lot of speculation about Mr. Kueck’s actions in the week of the manhunt which are basically just that, speculation.

Having said that, it is an interesting, if tragic read.

[Leslie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This author has an exceptional ability in getting people to talk about a traumatic event. For most true crime authors, conversations are much easier to get as they are a matter of court records. But, in this case, both the victim and the perpetrator were killed, and there were no on-site witnesses. No wonder the author had to do 8 years of research to write this book. An outstanding effort on her part produced a memorable book.

[Terry Cornell · Rating 2 out of 5]

In my rating system, I'd give this two and a half stars. Originally the author wrote this as a piece for 'Rolling Stone' magazine, and I read it at the time. It was an account of the murder of LA County Sheriff Deputy Stephen Sorensen by a reclusive, mentally ill, ex-convict in Lake Los Angeles. I was interested to see how the author could possibly flesh out a magazine article into a full fledged book. It is possibly the most convoluted, rambling book I have ever read. Reminds me of trying to turn a two-page college term paper into a 50 page thesis. So not a fan of the writing style. On the other hand, the material is interesting. Like your typical true crime book, Stillman writes of the actual murder, the search for the killer, does an extensive background on Deputy Sorensen and his murderer Donald Kucek. However, intermixed with this is some interesting history of the Antelope Valley the Lake Los Angeles community in particular, Native American mysticism, and Stillman attempting to show comparisons to the murdered deputy and his killer. While reading it, it brought to mind another Steve, Steve Finson an acquaintance murdered last year in Lake Los Angeles. Then last week another Steve, Sheriff Sgt. Steve Owen was murdered by a burglary suspect less than a mile from my home. This just drives home that trying to make sense of senseless killings is impossible.

[Morris Massre · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gripping story that takes hold of you almost immediately. I especially like the way author describes Los Angeles scene in the mid 19th century as a city of unbridled crime with a murder rate of one a day, not including Blacks, Indians, and Mexicans because their murders were not considered crimes at the time. Story then leads into the life of squatters and hermits in the Mojave Desert, which is a part of Los Angeles to my astonishment, and the murder of a modern day deputy by one of the desert's residents. But what I liked most about the book was the way in which Stillman uses each chapter to jump from each character to the murder and the manhunt in general.

[Kristin]

I started reading this because I enjoy anything about the desert. So, I did really enjoy the setting here, and it is very well written, but in the future I must remember that the subject matter does actually count for something. And I'm just plain not interested in true crime or real life psycho murderers. Or California. :-/

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story is engaging, but the author left me very frustrated at times with her writing style, which made it hard to follow the story. There are a few points where I have no idea how the person ended up where they did because of poor story telling.

[Aerials · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is a lot of interesting information here, as mentioned by other reviewers. I was surprised to read her giving thanks to her editor. I can't believe there was one.

[Elizabeth Laborde · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my second Stillman book and it didn't disappoint. Her research bibliography alone is impressive, six pages long! For readers who enjoy true crime and seek to explore what is underneath the surface events, "Desert Reckoning" is a good choice. Not only does it delve into the Mojave, but also it explores the characters on a finite level: their interrelationships, crossed pathways, missed opportunities, wrong turns, histories, and dreams of the people. The death of these men echoes reaches over a vast geographical and emotional space. Ultimately, the motivations and lethal actions may seem to be a matter of good and evil, but this book suggests that dichotomy isn't particularly useful.

While I appreciated the forays into Jello's misspent life and the travels to Seattle, Riverside and beyond, that isn't something all readers would enjoy. If a reader seeks a police procedural with the details about the manhunt and eventual capture of the homicidal hermit, this might not be the right book. But for those who are curious about the desert (like myself, currently researching a novel), this is a goldmine. I especially valued the inclusion of local expressions, insights, and customs that would be hard to discover without actually living there. I'll look forward to reading more Stillman books in the future.

[Durval Menezes · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting book. Not great, as sometimes it became really slow to the point of fastidiousness, and the details and side stories went on to almost irrelevancy; but the story itself is interesting and the prose is well-written. And the bright side of all the details of that I learned quite a few new things about the West Mojave Desert. If Goodreads allowed fractional ratings, it would have been fair to rate this book nearer to 3.5 than 3.

[Steve Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good narrative when the author stayed out of the way - the poetic histrionics and asides get to be too much by the end of the book. Some nice descriptions of the Mohave desert, though, and her reverence for the area is clear. A solid true crime tale.

[Suzanne Laing · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book but took awhile to read. Lots of speculation on what the hermit was thinking.

[Lili · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some really fun LA/desert history packed in here.

[Selena · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a very mixed bag read for me. The parts of it that actually had to do with the deputy were interesting and tragic, and I would give that portion of the book a higher rating

However, this author veers into the realm of imagination far too often. She wants us to believe that someone in the story thought this or said that when there is absolutely no way of knowing if that is true or not. I would give that portion of the book one star.

There are also several parts that just seems like filler. Maybe it would be an interesting article on its own, but there was just too much going on that didn’t seem well tied together. I think that the book could easily have been half the length and been a tighter read. There was also unnecessarily graphic information. Out of respect for family and loved ones I see no reason that that needed to be retold.

[Jane Hammons · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best thing about this book is the portrait of the Mojave and the people who migrate there for all kinds of reasons. Stillman does a great job of showing the lives of the poor, meth addicts, children from extraordinarily families alongside farmers, ranchers, law enforcement and "Hollywood" people who use the desert for respite from LA. The Sorenson story gets stretched beyond credibility with a lot of "he might have been thinking this" or "maybe he was using tunnels beneath the desert." Not only do I dislike this kind of journalism, if it can be called that, it's entirely unnecessary in this book, which sometimes feels like a really good essay (which it initially was in Rolling Stone) unfortunately stretched into a book. But nonetheless, the stories that Stillman is able to research and document are fascinating. She knows the people and the landscape really well.

[Nona Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author provided an entertaining profile for both the police officer and the perpetrator in this account of a murder and a manhunt. In addition she provided a very interesting history of the Los Angeles early wild west days and explored the interesting characters who settle in remote desert locations.

Although the author did a lot of speculation to fill in parts where facts were absent, I enjoyed her thoughts and speculations. I plan to read at least one more of her books.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating look at a terrible crime in L.A.'s back yard, and gripping account of the Los Angeles Sheriffs Department's search for a brother officer's murderer. This book also contains intriguing accounts of law enforcement's history in L.A. County. Unfortunately this book veers too much into distracting speculation into Donald Kueck's inner monologue to be truly "great."

[Kyleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full of speculation (she even puts words and thoughts into the mouths and minds of desert animals), but so beautifully written. Stillman took me into the Mojave and I feel like I've lived there after reading this book. I can't remember the last time I read nonfiction that was so vivid.

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I live in Arizona and this book made me feel hot, dirty and gritty. A good look into people on the fringe and those set out to keep law and order in an orderless place. You'll want to take a shower after this one.

[Penny Ramirez]

Interesting, but not enough to get me past page 60. Not enough patience this week for all of the details, and the book is overdue. I may give it another shot in the future.

[Carl Phillips · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very sad story.

[Kenneth Tubman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh!