Bitch Creek
A Novel
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4.1 • 8 Ratings
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
". . . It’s wonderful to see Tapply get out of the city and into an altogether different kind of time that suits his unhurried storytelling perfectly."--Kirkus Reviews"Outstanding . . . electrifying . . . ingenious . . . one of the most convincingly heroic and likeable of contemporary sleuths."--Publishers Weekly"Tapply is . . . a worthy successor to Hammet and both MacDonalds (Ross and John)."--Chicago TribuneWilliam G. Tapply has created a fresh new world in Bitch Creek, a steamy, perfectly crafted mystery introducing Stoney Calhoun, an unlikely hero. Stoney is a man without a past. A tragic event has obliterated his memory and he has been given-as so many might like to receive-a chance to reinvent himself. That’s not an easy task when a man doesn’t knowanything about himself, except that he is smart and utterly self-reliant.Stoney is driven by a current from within. He has settled in Maine and has become a fishing guide, and he’s busy reeducating himself. He’s also in love, and he is slowly coming to terms with the sometimes ghostly glimpses of his past. Life is sweet, until someone close to him is murdered, and Stoney suspects that he himself was the intended target. In a riveting process of investigation and self-discovery, Stoney delves deep into the mysteries of the murder and begins, unwittingly, to uncover vital truths about himself.In Bitch Creek, Tapply has created a unique and intensely likeable protagonist. He has fashioned an ingenious plot that exquisitely unfolds along with simultaneous layers of personality and intrigue. With stunning surprises and dead-on dialogue, Bitch Creek will be hailed, along with Stoney Calhoun, as Tapply’s latest brilliant creation.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The reliable Tapply introduces a new series with a real page-turner set in rural Maine. Stoney Calhoun, "a man without a history," lost his memory in a lightning strike five years earlier. Soon after the accident, Stoney left a rehab hospital in Virginia with a $25,000 check in his pocket from an insurance settlement, drove "Downeast" to live in seclusion along the eponymous creek of the title and began work at Kate Balaban's bait and tackle shop. One morning he foists an unsavory customer planning a wilderness trip onto Lyle McMahan, a local college student and fellow guide, and neither is seen again until Stoney finds Lyle's body floating in an alder swamp with a bullet in his belly. Gnawed by guilt over Lyle's murder, Stoney, with his faithful spaniel, Ralph, searches remote villages, farms and woodlands for his friend's killer, and while doing so, finds clues to his own mysterious past. Tapply's down-to-earth style provides an uncomplicated plot with striking descriptions of Maine's wildest topography, though a far-fetched and excessively violent resolution spoils the rustic mood. Tantalizing questions about Stoney's previous life remain for a future installment. .
