Status
Available
Series
Genres
Collections
Publication
New York : Viking, 2012.
Description
Sheriff Martha Ettinger investigates the suspected murder of a young man retrieved from the Madison River in Montana with a trout fly stuck in his lip.
User reviews
LibraryThing member rhonda1111
Royal Wulff Murders, The Keith McCafferty
4 STARS
The only complaints that I have for this story is swearing and too much about fly fishing for me. The Mystery was well written and kept me guessing who and why for the murder.
I like the range of characters, Also it left open for possible future
Rainbow Sam a fishing guide was in a boat with a client fly fishing, when the client finally caught something. A dead body.
Sean Stranahan is new to Montana. He is now a painter but he was a private detective when he was younger. To get in the cheaper office he had to put on it on the door under artist.
He had a walk in client that wanted to pay him to fly fish looking for fish that her father had caught than marked so she can find the area her father wrote about and leave his ashes their. Also look for her brother that was fishing to find it also.
Sean is living in his office so he can save money till he sells some paintings. He just got divorced and moved from Vermont.
Sheriff Martha Ettinger thinks their is something wrong with the young man who died in the river. No one seemed to know who he was. No wallet or car was found.
I liked listening to this mystery on my kindle and would love to read more from Keith in the future.
I was given this ebook to read in exchange of honest review from Netgalley.
02/16/2012 PUB Penguin Group, USA Viking Imprint
4 STARS
The only complaints that I have for this story is swearing and too much about fly fishing for me. The Mystery was well written and kept me guessing who and why for the murder.
I like the range of characters, Also it left open for possible future
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stories.Rainbow Sam a fishing guide was in a boat with a client fly fishing, when the client finally caught something. A dead body.
Sean Stranahan is new to Montana. He is now a painter but he was a private detective when he was younger. To get in the cheaper office he had to put on it on the door under artist.
He had a walk in client that wanted to pay him to fly fish looking for fish that her father had caught than marked so she can find the area her father wrote about and leave his ashes their. Also look for her brother that was fishing to find it also.
Sean is living in his office so he can save money till he sells some paintings. He just got divorced and moved from Vermont.
Sheriff Martha Ettinger thinks their is something wrong with the young man who died in the river. No one seemed to know who he was. No wallet or car was found.
I liked listening to this mystery on my kindle and would love to read more from Keith in the future.
I was given this ebook to read in exchange of honest review from Netgalley.
02/16/2012 PUB Penguin Group, USA Viking Imprint
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LibraryThing member phoenixcomet
Solid first attempt from new author Keith McCafferty. Compelling characters with a few interesting twists. Sean Stranahan has left the east coast to start life over in Montana fishing. When the body of a young male is found murdered with a Royal Wulff fly inserted through his lip, the game is on
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involving a cast of characters including Vareda Beaudreaux, sultry sex pot and Sheriff Martha Ettinger. Show Less
LibraryThing member dollycas
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
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.
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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.
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LibraryThing member A_Reader_of_Fictions
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
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.
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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.
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LibraryThing member pigeon_racer
This book was thoroughly enjoyable, the author is knowledgable about seemly all facets of fly fishing, and the way he weaves it into the main story is flawless. Remains very interesting from the beginning to the conclusion. Excellent job!
LibraryThing member kmajort
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
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
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may add to my reasons, though I don't tie files.A great vacation book to get lost in for a few days.
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LibraryThing member SmithfieldJones
It could have been an easy "5" and in many ways was - wonderful use of the English Language; nature descriptions that took you there. Problems? Characters "thin" - after a whilel (except for one or two "sub-characters who showed some promised"; and plot??? it would start to get reader excited but
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then slip back into "Soap Opera" mood. Not against Soap Operas if that is what one wants, but one reads a murder mystery to read a murder mystery not "Days of Our . . ." Having said that I cannot wait to read the next book in the Sean Stranahan series. Show Less
Awards
High Plains Book Award (Finalist — Fiction — 2013)