Dark Tiger

August 24, 2009
Stoney Calhoun goes undercover in Tapply's diverting third mystery to feature the Portland, Maine, bait shop owner who lost his memory in a lightning strike years before (after 2007's Gray Ghost
). Despite this tragedy, Stoney retains the skills that make him valuable to the local police as a volunteer deputy as well as to “the Man in the Suit,” who works for a government agency and periodically shows up to ask Stoney's help. Stoney's latest job for his mysterious employer takes him to an exclusive resort in far northern Maine as a fishing guide to unobtrusively investigate the murder of a federal agent named McNulty and the 16-year-old girl who was with McNulty. Stoney's technique of making anyone with a secret uncomfortable enough to give him or herself away leads to more murders among the small group of resort staff and owners. Sadly, Tapply died July 28, 2009, but fans can expect one more book in his long-running Brady Coyne series (Hell Bent
, etc.).

September 15, 2009
After years of establishing and protecting amnesiac Stonewall Jackson Calhoun's identity as co-owner of a Maine tackle shop, federal agents return to make him an offer he can't refuse.

Kate Balaban, Stoney's partner in business and love, is about to lose the lease on Kate's Bait and Tackle, and her MS-stricken husband Walter is about to be turned out of his nursing home—unless Calhoun, who was clearly trained as a federal operative before he lost his memory (Gray Ghost, 2007, etc.), takes a month off to do an unspecified favor for an unspecified government agency. Under cover of working as a fishing guide at upscale Loon Lake Lodge, Calhoun will ask discreet questions about the shooting of a federal agent named McNulty and his companion, 16-year-old townie Millie Gautier, which looked like a murder-suicide until the state medical examiner discovered that they'd died before they were shot. Don't arouse suspicion, his contact, The Man in the Suit, tells him. Don't blow your cover. Don't breathe a word about what you're doing to anyone, including Kate. And don't even think about failing. The most immediate results of Calhoun's sub rosa investigation are two more violent deaths, and his diagnosis that the case involves"too many dead bodies and not enough clues" is all too accurate. Eventually his questions precipitate a crisis, and he can then return home to find out whether Kate forgives him for abandoning her in total secrecy.

More nourishment for Field& Stream readers than for mystery fans.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

September 1, 2009
Maine fishing guide Stoney Calhouns life takes a turn in this third entry in the late Tapplys winning series, following Bitch Creek, 2004, and Gray Ghost, 2007. Seven years after Calhouns memory was obliterated by 10,000 volts of electricity, presumably from a lightning bolt, he has built a new life and solved two local murders, as muscle memory reminds him of previously learned abilities. Then an unnamed messenger brings an assignment, along with an illustration of the damage he can do to the lives of Calhoun and his business partner and lover, Kate Balaban, should the assignment be refused. Calhoun, it seems, is uniquely qualified to find out why a government operative died in a puzzling manner while a guest at an exclusive fishing lodge on the Canadian border, where two more murders occur just days after Calhoun arrives. The resolution of the case also leads to Calhouns recognition of his previous occupation and hints of what may lie ahead for him. Tapply was a top-notch mystery writer, and the Calhoun series combines an intriguing premise with the authors familiar flair for character.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)