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3.56 AVERAGE
3.56 AVERAGE
I wish I knew more about and had done more fly fishing when I was younger. I did some as a kid, but my experience is close to nothing, and I always figured it would be best to learn to tie flies if you could see. I could be off-the-rails wrong about that; somewhere out there in some obscure town is an old guy who tied flies when he could see and just kept tying after the Mac D turned out the lights. I actually hope that's true. Part of the charm of this series is exploring the kind of personality you need to be truly good at the craft of fly fishing. Further, the author brings Montana to life as few I've ever read can. That's not an area I've been in much either. Oh, I did the whole Quake Lake tour thing as a teenage kid, but the thought of all those dead bodies buried by the earthquake creeped me out enough that I couldn't get past that to learn substantive things about the place. So this book served as an outstanding tour guide to a place I ought to have known more about, but my stupid adolescent mentality got in the way back when I could have explored it up-close.
Sean Stranahan came west after a failed marriage. He had done some private investigating while he lived back there, but the disunion from Beth took a lot out of him. He makes a living as an artist and as a fly fishing guide in Montana.
In this book, a fly fishing guide snags a human body early on, and it's a body with a Royal Wulff fly hooked in the lip. Someone stuck a sharp object in the eye of the dead guy for good measure. In fact, it's probably that sharp object that killed the guy. Not long after the creepy discovery, someone shoots and nearly kills the fly fishing guide. Stranahan unofficially teams up with Sheriff Martha Ettinger to figure out both who the dead guy is and why someone wanted him dead. They soon learn that the key is in following the money, and there's money to be had in fly fishing.
If I can find the other books in this series, I'll continue with them. They're worth it.
Sean Stranahan came west after a failed marriage. He had done some private investigating while he lived back there, but the disunion from Beth took a lot out of him. He makes a living as an artist and as a fly fishing guide in Montana.
In this book, a fly fishing guide snags a human body early on, and it's a body with a Royal Wulff fly hooked in the lip. Someone stuck a sharp object in the eye of the dead guy for good measure. In fact, it's probably that sharp object that killed the guy. Not long after the creepy discovery, someone shoots and nearly kills the fly fishing guide. Stranahan unofficially teams up with Sheriff Martha Ettinger to figure out both who the dead guy is and why someone wanted him dead. They soon learn that the key is in following the money, and there's money to be had in fly fishing.
If I can find the other books in this series, I'll continue with them. They're worth it.
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
You don't have to know anything about fly fishing to enjoy this book! Although, I have to say, fly fishing is more exciting than I had expected. This is the first book in the series. Sean was a private detective, way back when, but he's moved to Montana to get away and make an attempt as a working artist. He gets swept into the mystery when a body is literally fished out of the river and an enigmatic, attractive singer knocks on his studio door. The mystery is well plotted and the cast of characters is likable for the most part. I didn't like the singer - just a bit too stereotypical for me. I particularly liked Sheriff Martha Ettinger. The author writes well and his immersive descriptions of Big Sky country made me want to visit a part of the county I had no interest in visiting until now. Well... maybe I'll just read the next book in the series for now...
The “Holy Grail” of trout rivers in Montana is the Madison River. It is here that a fishing guide reels in quite a catch. A dead body with a Royal Wulff trout fly through his lower lip and a stick in his eye. Obviously an easily explained drowning. Not so fast, Sheriff Martha Ettinger thinks there is more to the story. While questioning other fishermen she meets Sean Stranahan, a former private detective, painter and fly fisherman would has moved to Montana to escape his life back East and pursue his passion of painting.
Stranahan is still representing himself as a P.I. because his landlord likes to have the tenants represent a variety of occupations. He is totally surprised when Velvet Lafayette shows up at his door to hire him to find her missing brother. Are these cases related? Will Sean and Martha need to team up to find their answers? Just what is happening in and around Bridger, Montana? It is definitely more than meets the fly!
Dollycas’s Thoughts
You do not have to fish to enjoy this well written mystery. The first novel by Field & Stream Magazine Editor McCafferty is a very well crafted and complex whodunit. His love of nature shines as brightly as the sun through his detailed descriptions of everything from landscapes to ponds to fish and birds. Big Sky Country leaps right off the pages.
His characters are also well developed and so sharp that you clearly picture them in their waders casting out to reel in a great big trout or belting out a song or tracking down clues to catch a killer. My grandfather was quite a fisherman and somehow I could see him out there in that beautiful setting casting time and time again with a huge smile on his face. He would have loved this scenic locale.
The story has ebbs and flows, ripples and rapids, channels and cascades, unveiled at a pace to be savored not hurried, although by the last few chapters I was devouring the pages at a pretty rapid pace. There are a few red herrings swimming with all those trout.
If you are a nature lover who likes a fine mystery you will really enjoy this book.
Stranahan is still representing himself as a P.I. because his landlord likes to have the tenants represent a variety of occupations. He is totally surprised when Velvet Lafayette shows up at his door to hire him to find her missing brother. Are these cases related? Will Sean and Martha need to team up to find their answers? Just what is happening in and around Bridger, Montana? It is definitely more than meets the fly!
Dollycas’s Thoughts
You do not have to fish to enjoy this well written mystery. The first novel by Field & Stream Magazine Editor McCafferty is a very well crafted and complex whodunit. His love of nature shines as brightly as the sun through his detailed descriptions of everything from landscapes to ponds to fish and birds. Big Sky Country leaps right off the pages.
His characters are also well developed and so sharp that you clearly picture them in their waders casting out to reel in a great big trout or belting out a song or tracking down clues to catch a killer. My grandfather was quite a fisherman and somehow I could see him out there in that beautiful setting casting time and time again with a huge smile on his face. He would have loved this scenic locale.
The story has ebbs and flows, ripples and rapids, channels and cascades, unveiled at a pace to be savored not hurried, although by the last few chapters I was devouring the pages at a pretty rapid pace. There are a few red herrings swimming with all those trout.
If you are a nature lover who likes a fine mystery you will really enjoy this book.
This is a really high quality mystery series. I accidentally read the third book in the series first but it didn't matter too much. McCafferty brings the Montana setting to life--outdoor lovers (and people who like Nevada Barr mysteries) will love these books. The author is the editor of Field and Stream magazine, and he knows what he's talking about. I really like his characters, and the story moves at a relaxed pace, while maintaining interest. I'm looking forward to reading others in the series.
The best kind of mystery in my opinion: a good story with solid, likeable characters who each have a bit of quirkiness; an interesting storyline that taught me a great deal about Montana fly fishermen/women and a sympathetic lead character. I was delighted to realize that the author has written several more with the same lead character!
I started and finished this today, my last day of vacation before heading back to work. I liked it, maybe more so because it's set in Montana with all it's natural beauty and part of my vacation was spent in nature. It's nothing flashy or spectacular but it makes for a good comfortable read with pleasant characters, told in third person from the alternating viewpoints of Sean Stanahan, a transplanted Vermontian (Vermoner?), and Martha Ettinger, the homegrown local Sheriff. The one character I could do without is Velvet/Vareda, the love interest. Clearly her mysterious ways were an attraction for Sean, the male lead, but there was no reason for her to be that way and, frankly, she drove me batty. I kept hoping Sean would tire of her mood shifts and avoidance of answering any questions and tell her to take a long walk off a short pier but, alas, that never happened.
The story does feature fly fishing quite heavily and the jargon went over my head, to be honest. I don't enjoy fishing (don't even like to eat fish) so I mostly skimmed those bits but it didn't detract from my overall experience too much. I already own the second book so I'll be moving on to it shortly.
The story does feature fly fishing quite heavily and the jargon went over my head, to be honest. I don't enjoy fishing (don't even like to eat fish) so I mostly skimmed those bits but it didn't detract from my overall experience too much. I already own the second book so I'll be moving on to it shortly.
Sam Meslik, a fishing guide, discovers a body in the Missouri River while out with a client one afternoon. Sean Stranahan is a artist who fled a broken marriage in Vermont in order to paint and fish in Montana. Now he paints at the Bridger Mountain Cultural Center and lives out of his Land Cruiser, trying to survive. On the door of his studio, he claims to be a private investigator, which he was, back in Massachusetts. A beautiful woman walks into his studio a few days after Sam finds the body and Sean is hooked, line and sinker. Vareda Beaudreaux wants Sean to find the place on the river where her father fished; together, they find out the body was Vareda's brother. Sean and Vareda want to find out why Jerry was killed and what it has to do with a fish hatchery and whirling disease, a disease that infects fingerling trout and kills them, decimating native trout populations. This was an interesting book and I learned a lot about fly fishing and fish biology than I ever really wanted to know, but it was quite entertaining.
Fishing, fly or in any other variety, is not my thing at all. Heck, I hardly even eat fish, mostly only under duress. I am perfectly happy to let them keep doing their thing. Nor do I have any desire to ever go fishing myself. Mysteries aren't my preferred reading either. But I try to be somewhat open-minded about my reading choices, so when the lure of a fly fishing mystery was dropped in front of me, I bit.
Should I have? Maybe not. The opening parts were definitely hard on me. There was so much fishing, like back-to-back fishing. This probably would have been okay if there had been some interesting conversations accompanying the fishing, but a lot of it was just someone out fishing with lots of details of fish and lures and bait and whatever. So not my thing.
Thankfully, things picked up when the sheriff got more page time. I liked her; she's a sassy woman kicking butt in a traditionally masculine profession. Plus, she doesn't fish, which meant that that did not happen much when she was around.
On the contrary, I did not like Velvet at all. The stage name is ridiculous, but her real name, Vareda Beaudreux, is no better. Really though, that's not the issue, because that would be absurd and unfair. Velvet/Vareda is one of those women that men all of over the world seem to obsess over: beautiful, tortured, mysterious. A completely different writer, John Green, has written two books about girls like this. What is the fascination, guys? I'd like to know because I so do not get it. Throw the crazy ones back!
Basically, I'm not an ideal judge of this book. However, I do think that as mysteries go, it's a pretty good one. Anyone who loves to fish and to read mysteries should not miss this.
Should I have? Maybe not. The opening parts were definitely hard on me. There was so much fishing, like back-to-back fishing. This probably would have been okay if there had been some interesting conversations accompanying the fishing, but a lot of it was just someone out fishing with lots of details of fish and lures and bait and whatever. So not my thing.
Thankfully, things picked up when the sheriff got more page time. I liked her; she's a sassy woman kicking butt in a traditionally masculine profession. Plus, she doesn't fish, which meant that that did not happen much when she was around.
On the contrary, I did not like Velvet at all. The stage name is ridiculous, but her real name, Vareda Beaudreux, is no better. Really though, that's not the issue, because that would be absurd and unfair. Velvet/Vareda is one of those women that men all of over the world seem to obsess over: beautiful, tortured, mysterious. A completely different writer, John Green, has written two books about girls like this. What is the fascination, guys? I'd like to know because I so do not get it. Throw the crazy ones back!
Basically, I'm not an ideal judge of this book. However, I do think that as mysteries go, it's a pretty good one. Anyone who loves to fish and to read mysteries should not miss this.
I liked this. Was a bit like listening to Guy Noir on Prairie Home Companion - down home folks, sabotaging an industry, hero (in distress), hot lady in distress....
Cute. Almost a cozy mystery? (Though I don't tend to go for those) Not vapid however, despite the "formula".
Oh, and I fly fish, which may add to my reasons, though I don't tie files.
A great vacation book to get lost in for a few days.
Cute. Almost a cozy mystery? (Though I don't tend to go for those) Not vapid however, despite the "formula".
Oh, and I fly fish, which may add to my reasons, though I don't tie files.
A great vacation book to get lost in for a few days.
A bit of a slow start but the setting won me over in the end. I won't be rushing out to continue the series but will drop back in now and then as a palate cleanser.