The Gray Ghost Murders

December 10, 2012
Even amid the serene trout streams of Montana, Sean Stranahan can’t seem to stay out of trouble—and there’s a heap of it in this bracing second adventure for the fly fisher/painter/PI (after 2012’s The Royal Wulff Murders). When the skeletal remains of two people surface in as many days on Sphinx Mountain, shorthanded Sheriff Martha Ettinger asks for Sean’s help investigating. Another case Sean’s already pursuing, concerning a pair of extremely valuable stolen fishing flies, provides the perfect cover for snooping—and he soon uncovers disturbing suggestions that someone could be hunting human quarry. Field & Stream editor McCafferty skillfully weaves Big Sky color, humor, and even romance (in the form of Sean’s stunning new girlfriend, Martinique, who’s bankrolling veterinary school by working as a bikini barista) into the suspenseful plot as it gallops toward a white-knuckle—if confusing—climax. The book’s biggest lure, however, remains Sean and his rugged band of Montana individualists. Agent: Dominick Abel.

January 15, 2013
A second spate of high-country homicides for Hyalite County sheriff Martha Ettinger and Sean Stranahan, the former Boston PI who solves murders when he isn't painting or fishing. Think big-city CSI teams have it tough? Their examinations of crime scenes are hardly ever interrupted by a grizzly bear like the one that sends Deputy Harold Little Feather to the hospital. The episode puts a serious crimp in Martha's appetite for pawing around Sphinx Mountain, where dog handler Katie Sparrow's German shepherd Lothar had led her to the decomposed remains of two unknown men. So Katie and Sean climb back alone to the scene of the crime and find a whopping big steel-jacketed bullet. The discovery means nothing to Sean, whom the Madison River Liars and Fly Tiers Club has hired in an amusingly roundabout way to recover a pair of hand-tied fishing flies most fishing clubs couldn't afford. But when Montana congressman Weldon Crawford Jr., who sold the club its land, casually mentions his fondness for big guns in the course of a visit Sean's paid ostensibly to ask if he's had any break-ins lately, Sean can't help wondering if the two cases are connected. Despite the rising body count, there'll be time for some expert and revealing forensics, Sean's romance with a sweet barista, and a novel and lethal twist on Richard Connell's classic story "The Most Dangerous Game." The same regulars and the same great scenery as Martha and Sean's debut (The Royal Wulff Murders, 2012). Though the felonious details this time are muddled and often hard to swallow, the central concept behind the complicated pair of cases is irresistible.

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January 1, 2013
Artist, fly fisherman, river guide, and former private-eye Sean Stranahan is hired by members of the Madison River Liars and Fly Tiers Club to locate two valuable antique fishing flies, mysteriously missing from their cabin clubhouse. After finding evidence that the missing flies may connect with two graves found on a nearby mountainside, Sean is asked by the sheriff to help trap the killer. Meanwhile, in his personal life, Sean begins a promising new relationship with Martinique, a young veterinary student, and he starts to set down roots in his adopted state of Montana. Details of fly-fishing and fly-tying are woven throughout the story as Sean and his law-enforcement colleagues attempt to find both the killer and the missing flies. The story is firmly set in the Montana wilderness and populated by well-drawn characters. This series will appeal to fans of Nevada Barr and C. J. Box as well as to fly-fishing devotees.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)