Deserted: The Mystery of Daniel Robinson in the Arizona Desert
On June 23, 2021, 24-year-old field geologist Daniel Robinson left a Buckeye, Arizona well site and drove his blue Jeep into a landscape that looks flat until you try to cross it. He didn't return. Weeks later, a rancher found the Jeep on its side in a shallow ravine-airbags deployed, personal effects inside. The desert had given back a vehicle and kept its silence about the driver.
Deserted is a rigorously reported, quietly gripping account of what we do-and don't-know. Linda Davidson reconstructs Daniel's last verifiable hours; walks the corridor of washes, tracks, and blind ground west of Phoenix; and reads the numbers without letting them write the story-airbag modules, ignition logs, call-detail records, drone grids, and "negatives" that matter as much as finds.
Refusing sensational shortcuts, the book holds competing frames in honest tension-walkaway, accident/exposure, foul play-testing each against terrain, time, and human behavior. It also follows a father's unyielding search that kept the map alive when official lines thinned.
Inside you'll find:
A clear, evidence-first narrative and reconciled timeline
Terrain-aware analysis of the vehicle scene and search strategy
Ethical true-crime reporting that centers people over spectacle
Practical field protocols for lone and remote work
Discussion questions and a consolidated bibliography
For readers of investigative narrative nonfiction who value accuracy over heat, Deserted listens hard where the Sonoran rarely echoes-and carries the case only as far as the evidence will go.
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