Dead Silver: A Novel

by Neil McMahon

Overview

After a twenty-year absence Renee Callister is back in Helena, Montana, to bury her estranged father. John Callister was a local pariah believed to have had a hand in his wife's murder when she was protesting the opening of a controversial silver mine. But the discovery of disturbing photographs and one silver earring in her father's home is causing Renee to reexamine her stepmother's death in a shocking new light—and sending her to Hugh Davoren for help.

A California expatriate, Hugh Davoren makes his living under Montana's Big Sky, working as a carpenter with his Blackfoot pal Madbird—and he's always there for a friend. But the truth Renee Callister seeks is buried in dark and dangerous places, and Davoren's going to make some powerful, unforgiving enemies when he digs too deep.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061340772
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	08/11/2009
Series:	Hugh Davoren Series , #2
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.31(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.65(d)

About the Author

Neil McMahon holds a degree in psychology from Stanford and was a Stegner fellow. He has published ten novels, in addition to the bestselling thriller Toys, coauthored with James Patterson. He lives in Missoula, Montana, where his wife directs the annual Montana Festival of the Book.

What People are Saying About This

James Patterson

“Reading DEAD SILVER is like discovering that the great Raymond Chandler wrote a mystery about Montana. ”

Editorial Reviews

Reading DEAD SILVER is like discovering that the great Raymond Chandler wrote a mystery about Montana. ” — James Patterson

“Imagine the Lone Ranger and Tonto as a pair of witty, profane, shot-and-beer construction workers. . . It’s a terrific read-worldly-wise, scary, and as fast moving as a runaway truck on a steep mountain grade.” — Larry Watson, author of Montana 1948

From the Publisher

Imagine the Lone Ranger and Tonto as a pair of witty, profane, shot-and-beer construction workers. . . It’s a terrific read-worldly-wise, scary, and as fast moving as a runaway truck on a steep mountain grade.

Larry Watson

Reading DEAD SILVER is like discovering that the great Raymond Chandler wrote a mystery about Montana.

James Patterson

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. (June)

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Publishers Weekly

Reopening the murder case of a wicked stepmother. When would-be environmental terrorist Astrid Callister dies in the arms of her lover, an employee at the Dodd Mines, in a Montana mountain cabin, her much older husband John, a respected wildlife biologist, is suspected but never charged, although innuendo ruins his community standing. On his death, Renee, his daughter from his first marriage, asks her childhood crush, Montana carpenter/sleuth Hugh Davoren (Lone Creek, 2007), to redeem her father from ignominy. Renee has found a stash of semi-porno pictures of Astrid and one flashy earring hidden in the old homestead. Do they point to someone else as the murderer? With an assist from his pal Madbird, who takes time out from seeking vengeance on his niece's married lover to help, Hugh investigates possibilities from Helena to Missoula. For his trouble, he winds up with gun-shot ribs, a trashed pickup truck and a maimed tomcat-not to mention a dust-off from the formerly willing Renee-while the story implodes with a chase after a heretofore unlikely suspect. Hugh and Madbird, a western variation on the Spenser-Hawk pairing, trudge through some great scenery and a glaringly inadequate plot. Who knew Montana was home to so many red herrings?Agent: Jennifer Rudolph Walsh/William Morris Agency

Kirkus Reviews