When a controversial environmental

activist known as the Green Man is killed by a

falling redwood branch, P.I. Stuart Winter is

retained by a radical conservation group whose

members believe he was murdered. Reluctant

to leave his home in San Francisco, Winter

travels to the primeval redwood forests of

northern California s Humboldt County, where

he is soon steeped in the lore of the redwoods.

Here he learns that death from falling redwood

branches is not uncommon. In sequoia country

the locals have long called such branches

"widowmakers," a name with a bloody history.

But the activists are not prepared to accept that

explanation; they believe lumber interests did

away with the Green Man to stop their protest

against the cutting of old-growth forest.

As Winter probes into the life of the Green

Man, nee Christopher Shepard, he discovers

that while Shepard was a modern day Johnny

Appleseed who planted more than a million

trees, he had scores of enemies. Not only the

Iocal lumber eompanies but many private

citizens detested him, and the marijuana

growers resented his interference.