Dead Silver

April 14, 2008
Like Lone Creek
, McMahon’s first novel to boast a Montana setting, this fine crime novel fairly glows with the big skies, rough country and outsize characters of his home state. Ex-journalist Hugh Davoren, working in Helena as a carpenter with his buddy Madbird, a Blackfoot Indian, is contacted by an old friend, Renee Callister, back in town to bury her father, John Callister, after a 20-year absence. John had lived the latter part of his life in disgrace as the chief suspect in the murder of his second wife, Astrid, and her lover. Renee finds old photographs of a nude Astrid and decides they are clues that will exonerate her late father. She asks Hugh to help her, and, smitten by her beauty and plight, he readily agrees. McMahon ties up several subplots—in particular, Madbird’s troubles with his niece, Darcy, who’s having an affair with a state representative—in a rather unwieldy knot by the end, but it’s the compelling prose, sense of place and sympathetic characters that make the book a joy to read.