Montana winters are cold, icy and unforgiving. But when a tough old rancher freezes to death in the teeth of a savage Montana blizzard, only his grandson believes it was murder. He enlists the help of former newshound and sometimes-carpenter Ben Tripp to start poking around and asking questions to hopefully discover the truth. Tripp's search leads him through an Old West that isn't so old anymore. It's a land of real estate brokers; Hollywood wannabes; militia units with Belgian automatics; corporate farmers with an eye for the bottomland and the bottom-line; and beautiful women. Tripp also discovers along the way that some things about the West will never change as he unravels a secret as old as the hills and--at least to some--worth more than life itself.
I liked the story but it was agonizing that the title was "A Golden Trail of Murder" and the characters couldn't figure out why someone would kill an old man. Poor title choice.