Last modified: Monday, February 5, 2007 10:22 AM PST OHS graduate find success as novelist Larry Meyer Argus Observer ONTARIO His love for reading may have been the only clue that Ontario High School graduate Enes Smith would one day be a published writer. Smith, 60, now a resident of Madras, completed his third novel last year, and is now going out around the nation promoting the new book. He is also starting work on a fourth novel. Smith gave an interview while on his way to Spokane on a book promotion tour. “Cold River Rising” is set in Oregon and Peru, with the main focus on the Cold River Indian Nation, which by design looks very much like the Warms Springs Tribe of Central Oregon. Smith got the idea for his third novel from his time as police chief of the Warm Springs. The story line is that a member of tribe, Tara Eagle, is kidnapped while on spring break in a foreign country, and she and her friends struggle for survival, first against terrorists and then against the national army. Frustrated by the slow response of the United State government, tribal officials use their tribal sovereignty to declare war, and are joined by other tribes. Originally from Minot, N.D., Smith, who is a twin, said his family lived in Nampa when they came to the Treasure Valley. Smith lived in Ontario from 1960 to 1965, he said. His father, Harry Smith, ran a Chevron gas station in downtown Ontario. “It was a pretty good place to grow up,” Smith said. “I remember liking high school a lot. I was a musician. We (he and his brother) participated in band.” Among Ontario teachers he remembered from those years were May Johnson and Glen Crosby. “We did a lot of social stuff,” he said. Since high school, Smith said he has made a career out of criminal justice, a vocation he uses as a basis for his novels. Besides serving with several police agencies, including the Warm Springs and Madras departments, Smith has also taught criminal justice classes at Central Oregon Community College in Bend. “I started writing in the early 1980s,” he said. Having been a avid reader at home, Smith said he had read a lot of popular fiction. However, he was not happy with a lot of the books he had been reading. “I was sure I could do better,” he said. Smith said he then began to write short stories and magazine articles. However, he said he wanted to go beyond that and had the opportunity to work with Seattle author Ann Rule, who encouraged him and put him in contact with an agent. His first novel, “Fatal Flowers” was published in 1992, and “Dear Departed” followed in 1994. In “Fatal Flowers” a serial killer kidnaps another victim, holds her for a time, only to let her go. However, he sends her flowers to show he is watching her and she is not free. In “Dearly Departed,” a police sergeant becomes a fugitive, accused in the murder of her sister, even though she was nearly a victim herself. Both books were published by Berkley Publishing Group in New York. Besides writing, Smith is motivational speaker and contact information can be found on his Web site at enessmith.com.