Back from the Deep: How Gene and Sandy Ralston Serve the Living by Finding the Dead
 When the police and FBI exhaust their abilities and options, when grieving families run out of resources, the last best hope is often a husband-and-wife team who have spent their retirement years pursuing lost causes—and have located more than 130 bodies from lakes and rivers across the United States and Canada.
         The Ralstons, a couple in their late seventies from rural Idaho, are self-taught underwater search and recovery specialists who volunteer their time and equipment. And yet they’re counted among the best in the world. They have an uncanny knack for finding bodies in water and sometimes succeed within hours, even minutes, of launching their boat.
Fascinating details about sonar technology, the physics of water, and the universal instinct to care for the dead are woven into this firsthand account of what it's like to search some of North America’s deepest lakes.

Details:
Release date: March 12, 2024
Publisher: Steerforth Press
ISBN: 978-1-58642-384-1

Find a copy:
- Amazon
- Indigo
- Bookshop.org
- Publisher’s website

Press and reviews:

  • Listen: Interview with Daybreak Alberta, CBC Radio, March 9, 2024

  • An "inspiring look at two people doing demanding work to bring closure to the families of drowning victims." — Kirkus Reviews

  • "Doug Horner, from Calgary, tells haunting yet comforting stories about the Ralstons and the victims they have found." — Literary Review of Canada

  • "Doug Horner tells us the story of an extraordinary couple who, like the Ferryman in ancient mythology, help the missing get to the other side by finding the certainty of their death. A moving story of this couple's dedication and love as told by a skilled writer." — Dr. Pauline Boss, author of Ambiguous Loss and The Myth of Closure 

  • "Part character study, part science, part detective story, Back From the Deep takes the reader places few of us have ever gone, and does so with curiosity and compassion in equal measure." — Sallie Tisdale, author of Advice for Future Corpses

  • "Back from the Deep is a riveting exploration of ambiguous grief and compassion. Horner's skills as a storyteller are on full display as he interweaves rigorous science reporting and a compelling narrative about an astonishing couple. The Ralstons have, through their unique combination of kindness and genius, found a way to provide some solace to the grief-stricken when there is seemingly nothing else to be done. Horner tells their story in all its complexity and always with empathy. This book will stay with me for the rest of my life." — Christina Frangou, independent journalist and recipient of Canada's Landsberg Award

  • "Doug Horner's Back from the Deep takes readers from the literal cold depths of tragedy and loss, to the peak of human generosity -- with some fascinating science along the way. This book is a well-crafted portrait of a remarkable couple. An achievement." — Marcello Di Cintio, author of Driven: The Secret Lives of Taxi Drivers