Horses...again

 It's not that my main character, Doug Fletcher, hates horses. He has a healthy respect for horses and approaches them cautiously. When the director of the National Park Service Investigative Services Branch suggests that Doug and his partner, Jill, use horses on their new assignment, he balks. 

The assignment is to locate skeletal remains in Theodore Roosevelt National Park, outside of Medora, North Dakota. The challenge presented by the assignment includes not knowing exactly where the remains are located in the park's 110 square miles. Their boss suggests riding horses as a means to cover more ground.

Doug is loaned a docile horse and over the course of the investigation, Doug and Joker bond. At least to a degree. That bond is tested when Doug fires his pistol while atop the horse. I won't expand other than to say Joker hasn't heard a gunshot before...

With the help of my horse and cop consultant, Deanna Wilson, I have Doug and Jill exploring the vast expanse of the park on horseback. As often happens in the Fletcher mysteries, the original assignment morphs into something entirely different when a woman and her daughter are kidnapped from a nearby campsite. Because of the vast area involved, Doug and Jill get assistance from the National Guard in their search for the kidnap victims.

This was a particularly fun book to write because the landscape, weather, mysteries, and characters revealed themselves to me, taking me far outside the scope of my original plot outline. I rode along with Doug and Jill as they explored the expanse of the park's south unit. I was concerned about the kidnapped woman and teen as we tried to identify the kidnapper and where he had taken them. I hiked the hills with my protagonists and National Guardsmen as they searched the remote portions of the park. I sat inside a camper as it was buffeted by a thunderstorm and was pelted by hail. And I snuck through the timber as Doug and Jill tried to find a remote campsite, with my heart pounded as we approached the conclusion.

I won't share any more of the plot other than to say I think it's one of the most gripping stories I've ever written.

Check it out this coming February on Amazon and the usual sales outlets.

Hovey, Dean Doug Fletcher series - BWL Publishing Inc.