Welcome to Week CXXXVI of ‘Fishing Parkland Shorelines’. Like most of us I am a novice fisherman, loving to fish, but far from an expert. In the following weeks I’ll attempt to give those anglers who love to fish but just don’t have access to a boat, a look at some of the options in the Yorkton area where you can fish from shore, and hopefully catch some fish.
Once the gifts are unwrapped, and the turkey is a mere skeleton destined for the leftover’s soup pot, and the fruitcake is merely a gathering of crumbs on the serving plate, it’s time to sit back and relax.
By this time we have likely all had our fill of seasonal TV, after all we can only take so many Grinch hearts growing, and so many Santas ho, ho, hoing, and so many ghosts visiting every incarnation of Ebenezer Scrooge (the true Scrooge is of course Alastair Sim), so why not think fishing.
Now I am not suggesting we should simply nod off in the easy chair while thoughts of carp and pike dance in our heads, that would just be a bit too much of a Yuletide stretch to make here.
Instead, I want to offer up the suggestion of a good mystery novel, or three, all with a connection to fishing, tied up as neat as a trout fly in a vice.
The books are by author Keith McCafferty, who I must say is my favourite fishing mystery author. I have read a number of mysteries, and many are fine reads; John Larison, Michael Wallace, Victoria Houston and M.W. Gordon among them, but McCafferty edges ahead of the pack.
The reason McCafferty’s books top my list likely comes from his extensive background as both a fisherman, and a writer, long before starting to pen mysteries.
“As well as being a novelist for Viking/Penguin Books, Keith McCafferty is the Survival and Outdoor Skills Editor of Field & Stream. He has written articles for publications as diverse as Fly Fisherman Magazine, Mother Earth News, Gray’s Sporting Journal and the Chicago Tribune, and on subjects ranging from mosquitoes to wolves to mercenaries and exorcism. Based in Montana and working on assignment around the globe–he recently spent a month in India trekking the Himalayas, fishing for golden mahseer and studying tigers–Keith has won numerous awards, including the Robert Traver Award for angling literature. He has twice been a finalist for a National Magazine Award,” details the biography on his website.
The Royal Wulff Murders was Keith’s first novel, although was actually the second of his books which I read.
“A clever and fast-paced murder mystery full of wit, suspense, and fly fishing,” details the website.
“When fishing guide reels in the body of a young man on the Madison, the Holy Grail of Montana trout rivers, Sheriff Martha Ettinger suspects foul play. It’s not just the stick jammed into the man’s eye that draws her attention; it’s the Royal Wulff trout fly stuck in his bloated lower lip. Following her instincts, Ettinger soon finds herself crossing paths with Montana newcomer Sean Stranahan.
“Fly fisher, painter, and has-been private detective, Stranahan left a failed marriage and lackluster career to drive to Montana, where he lives in an art studio decorated with fly-tying feathers and mouse droppings. With more luck catching fish than clients, Stranahan is completely captivated when Southern siren Velvet Lafayette walks into his life, intent on hiring his services to find her missing brother. The clues lead Stranahan and Ettinger back to Montana’s Big Business: fly fishing. Where there’s money, there’s bound to be crime.”
This was a great read, at least the equal to the first of his works I read. For the most part reading the books out of sequence was not an impediment; although there were a couple of references in book two I was aware were from this story.
The Royal Wulff Murders garnered McCafferty some definite early career buzz, and rightly so, receiving “a coveted red star review from Publisher’s Weekly, in addition to recommendations from best-selling authors C.J. Box, Craig Johnson and Henry Winkler, aka Arthur Fonzarelli, aka the Fonz! (Keith can’t believe it, either). The novel, a finalist for the High Plains Book Award, was also a Book of the Month Club and Mystery Guild selecti0n. The idea for the novel germinated during a long night in the wilderness while working for Field & Stream. His assignment was to survive a winter night without fire or adequate clothing, and it was during the interminable hours he spent shivering on the snowy breast of a mountain, wrapped in a scrap of tarp, that it dawned on him that there had to be an easier way to make a living. Writing a novel while sipping coffee and eating pain au chocolate in a French café, albeit in a French café in Montana and not on the Left Bank of the Seine, seemed a civilized and much warmer alternative.”
Keith’s second book in the Sean Stranahan series, The Gray Ghost Murders, the book I first read and fell in love with. It was chosen by Oprah’s Book Club as one of “5 Addictive New Mysteries We Can’t Put Down.”
Fourteen months after moving to Montana, fly fisherman, painter and sometime private detective Sean Stranahan is still sleeping in his office-cum-art studio, cobbling together a livelihood as a fishing guide while hawking hisriverscape watercolors. No longer a newcomer, he now knows the rivers and has a new love interest in Martinique, a cat lover who earns tuition money for veterinary school by selling coffee as a bikini barista.
But a life of romance and the perfectly painted horizon are not to be. A search dog has discovered the graves of two men on Sphinx Mountain. Sheriff Martha Ettinger suspects murder, but with a bear having scavenged the bodies and the only evidence a hole in a skull that might or might not have been caused by a bullet, she once more turns to Stranahan for help. He already has a case, having been hired by a group of eccentric fly fishermen called The Madison River Liars and Fly Tiers Club to find a valuable fly that they suspect stolen.
Could the disappearance of a vintage Gray Ghost from a riverside cabin in the Madison Valley be connected to the gray ghosts who haunt Sphinx Mountain? Stranahan will cross paths, and arms, with some of the most powerful people in the valley to find out while enlisting the help of his friend and fellow guide, the irascible Rainbow Sam.
This is the book which hooked me on McCafferty’s writing like a trout on a Gray Ghost.
The author did a great job of mixing in just enough ‘fishing’ without it seeming forced onto the story, while maintaining the pace of a fine, if not overly intricate mystery.
I also have to note here that it is a rather cool thing to go to McCafferty’s website at www.keithmccafferty.com and find a video of him actually showing how to tie the Gray Ghost Fly.
His third book, ‘Dead Man’s Fancy,’ also received a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly, which called the book complex, multilayered and “beautifully written,” and is on my drooling heartily to read list.
“Wolves howl as a riderless horse returns at sunset to the Culpepper Dude Ranch in the Madison Valley. The missing woman, Nanika Martinelli, is better known as the Fly Fishing Venus, a red-haired river guide who lures clients the way dry flies draw trout,” details the book entry at www.goodreads.com
“As Sheriff Martha Ettinger follows hoof tracks in the snow, she finds one of the men who has fallen under the temptress’s spell impaled on the antler tine of a giant bull elk, a kill that’s been claimed by a wolf pack. An accident? If not, is the killer human or animal? With painter, fly fisherman, and sometimes private detective Sean Stranahan’s help, Ettinger will follow clues that point to an animal rights group called the Clan of the Three-Clawed Wolf and to their svengali master, whose eyes blaze with pagan fire.
“In their most dangerous adventure yet, Stranahan and Ettinger find themselves in the crossfire of wolf lovers, wolf haters, and a sister bent on revenge, and on the trail of an alpha male gone terribly wrong.”
And then there is the really exciting news; McCafferty has finished his fourth book, ‘Crazy Mountain Kiss’, slated for publication in the spring of 2015. I can only hope he is already percolating ideas for a fifth one.
This is a series which will satisfy both fishermen and mystery fans, find, read and enjoy.
