The Memory Keeper: A Mountain Mystery (A Wallace, Idaho Mystery)

The Memory Keeper: A Mountain Mystery (A Wallace, Idaho Mystery)

Cody Marsh's domineering, embittered mother is the only family she has ever known, until her grandfather arrives. He brings with him the acceptance and kindness previously missing in her life, and his death a short time after they meet leaves her empty and yearning. Defying her mother for the first time, Cody sets out for the boyhood home of her grandfather -- Wallace, Idaho -- to find connections to him, to find her place in her family, to find peace within herself. Instead, her search lands her at the scene of a double homicide and Cody's discoveries of her grandfather's past become entwined in a history very much alive. The bordellos, politics, and silver mines of the past reach into the present, driving at least one of her new acquaintances to acts of desperation. Cody must find the strength to face not only private failures and the ghosts of old memories, but betrayal that will strike at her newfound courage. My father grew up with a mystery about his parentage, and died without ever finding the answer. Which meant us kids grew up with that same mystery. Plus the added mystery of not knowing how accurate his story was because he was known to make up things for our entertainment. After he died I realized I would never find the answer to his question...unless I came up with it myself. And so this story was born. I started with what I thought the answer was, but the characters took off on their own for a romp through woods and mountains. I hope you enjoy the story as much as I did seeking, and writing, the answer to his question: was his mother the insane woman who raised him, or a bordello madam? Writer and editor, Lisa Stowe hides out in the Pacific Northwest woods with her husband and son, and assorted animals, domestic and wild. Kerosene lanterns are her preferred illumination, and the background music she writes to most often comes from bears in the compost or her husband's chainsaw milling. Two luxuries are electricity and the internet, that finally reached the mountains. Because of those, she can now be found musing about writing at www.thestoryriver.com. That is, when she's not working on the next mystery or talking to a tree. Or hauling a dog away from dead salmon. Or yelling at a cougar. Or digging in the dirt. Simple mountain pleasures for the author of mountain mysteries.