BRISTLEWOLF
A true story buried in the Black Rock Desert
They chased a treasure map into the heat.
They never came back.
Get Chapter One before the book exists in stores.
Join the waitlist. I’ll send the opening pages and tell you the hour pre-orders go live.
True crime · Western noir · Nevada
In the summer of 1978, a newlywed couple drove into the Nevada desert looking for gold. Searchers found three bodies near a remote hot spring. The man who lived in a hole in the ground was called Bristlewolf.
Pre-orders November 1st 2026 · Publication June 2027 · Post Hill Press · Simon & Schuster distribution
No spam. No daily blasts. Just the story, the files, and the launch.
- • Chapter One, delivered immediately
• First notice when pre-orders open
7
Years in the desert
6,000+
Pages of evidence
42
Interviews
3
Nights in his hole
THE CASE
This is not a whodunit.
It’s how we let this happen.
Ronald John Gress, Bristlewolf, was a disfigured hermit living underground at Pinto Hot Springs. The state had already seen him. Then two people wandered into his garden. Then a third.
The map
Richard and Judy Weese left home chasing an old treasure map. The desert put them on the exact ground where a man named Bristlewolf had built a life out of silence.
The hole
He heated an underground dwelling with spring water. He grew a garden where nothing should grow. He had no address, no phone, and almost no one watching.
The ten days
Three people were shot. Their bodies lay in the heat before anyone found them. The case closed. The files collected dust. The playa kept the rest.
The seven years
I walked their route. I slept in the dugout. I sat with families, lawmen, and the records nobody asked for. This book is what that work produced.
“You are the Anne Rule of Nevada.”
MICHAELA HAMILTON · KENSINGTON
WAITLIST EXCLUSIVE
Social Media
You do not get a trailer. You get Chapter One. Then you come to Facebook and see the work itself. The map. The spring. The ground. The kind of thing a trailer would cut.
Facebook/morleypic
Victim-respectful. Fact-checked. Nothing invented for shock.
WHAT JOINING ACTUALLY DOES
You are not signing up for a newsletter.
You are getting in line before the retailer pages exist. When pre-orders open in November 2026, this list is how the first wave hits at once, the only number that moves a debut onto a list.
- • Chapter One on signup
• A 24-hour head start on pre-order day
• Launch-week notes from the desert, not a marketing calendar
THE AUTHOR
I didn’t write this from a desk.
I’m Nate Morley. First book. Part-time in an operating room. The rest of the time I have been out on the playa, in court files, and in rooms with people who still remember 1978. Bristlewolf is dramatized narrative mixed with documented fact. I am asking you to read it when it exists and to stand in line now so the story does not stay buried.
Published by Post Hill Press. Distributed by Simon & Schuster. Pre-orders November 1st 2026. Publication June 2027.