The third novel in Patrick F. McManus's bestselling mystery series finds Sheriff Bo Tully with his hands full of elusive killers, eccentric backwoods characters, and irresistible women in this latest romp through the wilds of Blight County, Idaho. Sheriff Bo Tully is the kind of western lawman who's as good with the ladies as he is with his guns, and he never lets a death threat get in the way of a good barbecue. He's a man with a sense of humor, which comes in handy when trying to establish order in Blight County. In this latest tale, Tully pursues a seventy-five-year-old missing persons case in which a pair of gold miners (a two-man drilling team known as a double-jack) mysteriously disappeared just as they hit the mother lode in a remote part of Blight County. Meanwhile, a second, more threatening case looms large. After serving only two months of a life sentence, a mentally unstable murderer named Kincaid—a nasty piece of work if there ever was one—manages to escape prison, setting his sights on killing the man who put him behind bars: one Sheriff Bo Tully. In an effort to lead his would-be killer into the open, and also to do a little gold prospecting and fishing while he's at it, Tully heads north with his ex-sheriff father, Pap, and his friend and expert tracker, Dave. As the two cases play themselves out, Sheriff Tully finds himself hunting down one murderer who's probably long dead, and being hunted by another who's very much alive. A fast-moving tale of murder, mayhem, and mining, The Double-Jack Murders is Patrick F. McManus's darkest, most entertaining mystery yet. “Everybody should read Patrick McManus.” — New York Times Book Review “The laid-back Bo and McManus’ signature humor are the main attractions in this third in the series.” — Booklist “A style that brings to mind Mark Twain, Art Buchwald, and Garrison Keillor.” — People Patrick F. McManus is a renowned outdoor writer, humorist, and longtime columnist for Outdoor Life and Field & Stream . His most recent Sheriff Bo Tully mysteries are The Double-Jack Murders and Avalanche . He is the author of many other books, including such runaway New York Times bestsellers as The Grasshopper Trap , The Night the Bear Ate Goombaw , and Real Ponies Don't Go Oink! He lives in Spokane, Washington. The Double Jack Murders 1 IDAHO’S BLIGHT COUNTY sheriff, Bo Tully, scanned the ridge above his log house with binoculars. Nothing. Still too dark to make out anything beyond the tree line. He sighed, letting the binoculars dangle down his chest. Behind him on the porch, a little brown-and-white dog perched on a padded bar stool. The dog watched the sheriff intently, as if sensing some danger. Tully glanced at the dog. “Still too dark to see anything, Clarence. You don’t have to worry, anyway. It’s me he’s after, not you.” Clarence laid his chin down on his paws. “Sure,” Tully said to him. “ Now you relax!” The sun began to rise over the ridge to the east. Soon its rays penetrated the tree line on the west ridge. Tully, wearing khakis, a red-and-blue tattersall shirt, a well-aged leather jacket, and his three-thousand-dollar alligator-skin cowboy boots, raised the binoculars and again scanned the woods. A deer stood there, gazing down at the meadow. A good sign. Tully could detect no movement among the trees. He turned at the sound of a motor. A pickup truck was coming down the road that wound across the meadow to his house. Deputy Brian Pugh pulled up and got out of the truck. He was wearing jeans, a sweatshirt, and a baseball cap. He was ridiculously trim and fit. His squinty eyes gave his face a hard look, softened a bit by the brown mustache that adorned his upper lip. A sheriff’s department badge was fastened to a pocket of his faded jeans. “Morning, Bo.” “Morning, Pugh.” The dog raised his head off his paws and growled. “Shut up, Clarence,” Pugh said as he came up the porch steps. “I don’t like criminals growling at me.” He was referring to the little dog’s several arrests for hiding under cars and biting people on the ankles, usually a little old lady with an armload of packages. Clarence stopped growling. Tully said, “You wouldn’t like a nice little dog, would you, Pugh?” “No way. You were supposed to take Clarence out in the woods and knock him off. It’s not my fault you’re turning soft.” “Don’t let it get around. Anyway, I’ve got a place all fixed up for you by the window in the studio upstairs. The rifle is sighted in at three hundred yards. That should give you a dead-on shot.” “How can I be sure it’s Kincaid?” “I’ve got a major spotting scope up there. At three hundred yards, you should be able to pick out the sex of a mosquito on his face. I suspect he may be wearing that stupid cap of his, the red-and-black-plaid one with the earflaps tied up on top. Besides, he’ll have a rifle with him. Shouldn’t be anybody up there with a rifle in June.” “You want me to kill him, right?” Pugh said. Tully