In this second book in the 'Sean Stranahan' series, the painter/private detective is involved in two investigations. The book works fine as a standalone, though familiarity with the characters is a bonus.
****Sean Stranahan - an artist and private investigator - moved from the East Coast to Bridger, Montana for a change of scenery and the excellent fly fishing.
A while back, Stranahan helped Sheriff Martha Ettinger track down a murderer, and Ettinger now hires Sean on occasion, to work with her team.
Martha's crew includes Deputy Sheriff Walt Hess, who was once a Chicago police detective;
and Native American tracker Harold Little Feather, who can follow footprints and animal tracks that are almost invisible.
Sean is asked to assist after dog handler Katie Sparrow and her German Shepherd Lothar search Sphinx Mountain for schoolteacher Gordon Godfrey, whose wife reported him missing.
It turns out Godfrey is shacked up with another woman, but Lothar sniffs out SOMEONE ELSE'S bones in a shallow grave. Worse yet, this area appears to be a 'graveyard' because a second set of bones is located nearby.
When Katie and Sean search the area for evidence, they find a wedding ring and a bullet.
These clues lead the police to discover that the victims were older men with terminal illnesses, and that at least one victim was shot with a fancy expensive hunting rifle, like those used by trophy hunters on safari.
While all this is going on, private detective Stranahan accepts a case of his own. The 'Madison River Liars and Fly Tiers Club', which owns a fishing lodge on the Madison River, has experienced a serious theft.
The club purchases and displays collectible fishing flies, and two flies - worth thousands of dollars each - have been stolen. The club hires Sean to track down the thief and retrieve the fishing flies.
Sean works on the two cases simultaneously: the Sphinx Mountain murderer and the fishing fly burglar.
For the burglary case, Sean stays in the fishing lodge for a few days, and speaks to the neighbors: a nasty cheapskate and his school age son; and a wealthy U.S. Senator. However, no one saw any suspicious characters lurking in the area.
The murder investigation reveals a complicated scheme that led to the victims' deaths, and - as it turns out - there's a connection with the stolen fishing flies. All this leads to an action-packed denouement.
In Stranahan's personal life, his long-distance romance with a beautiful club singer seems to have petered out, and Sean starts dating a pretty bikini barista/veterinary student named Martinique. Martha Ettinger is sniffy about Sean's new girlfriend, who serves coffee in barely-there outfits.
(Note: Author Keith McCafferty leans toward what I call 'male fantasy writing'. It seems every woman who lays her eyes on Sean is smitten, including the sheriff and the dog handler. At least Sean is described as handsome, which reduces my irritation a tiny bit. LOL)
As in the first book in the series, characters in this novel do lots of fly fishing and chat about making and using fishing flies. Though I don't fish, I find this interesting.
I enjoyed the book, but I found the plot overly complicated and not quite credible. Still, it's fun to visit with the recurrent characters, who are an interesting bunch.
Rating: 3 stars
No comments:
Post a Comment