Murder on the Middle Fork

Reviews

Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2009-12-08
Summary: "A wonderful and bittersweet read"

Don Ian Smith spent forty-three years as a Methodist minister, and retired from the last church in Boise, Idaho, where he taught, preached, and reached out to juveniles. He owned and operated a small cattle ranch in Salmon, Idaho with his wife until his death in May of 2007. Naida West grew up in Idaho and attended a one-room schoolhouse. Eventually she moved to California and blossomed, first as an exchange student to Germany, then lived there as a translator. She returned to California, where she eventually earned her Ph.D. She has done everything from picking potatoes to being a politician's wife, college teacher, and author.

MURDER ON THE MIDDLE FORK is told through the eyes of a 30-year old woman, married to a brutal man who keeps her as a prisoner in canyon long stripped of any mining possibilities. When a German immigrant's neat little home and farm come to his attention, he tried to use his wife to murder the German, figuring that it is war time and he will be absolved of his crimes. His wife moves in on the German and falls in love for the first time in her sad life:

"'I tell you, Frieda, vhy I haff dis gun mit.' He slapped the holster. `I tell you da truth, as I hope you tell me dat truth. Animals mit two legs be da most dangerous kind. Not you, Frieda. You be a goot person. But maybe some person come to hurt you. I see you looking around mit fear in your eyes. I haff my gun here so dat not happen. I protect you. I protect you mit my rifle also.'

Suddenly she couldn't talk any more. Whisking up the plates, she turned to the house before he could see the tears in her eyes. He was protecting her! A man who came to America to find peace! A man she would help to kill."

More of an historical fiction story than an actual murder mystery, MURDER ON THE MIDDLE FORK deals with a true-life murder that occurred in 1917. The authors include many themes to instruct the reader, such as spousal abuse, wartime bigotry, social isolation, hunting, guilt and redemption. MURDER ON THE MIDDLE FORK is not for the faint of heart, but this little book is a wonderful and bittersweet read.

Shelley Glodowski
Senior Reviewer

Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2008-05-07
Summary: "Great Read"

This book kept me interested from page one, I loved this story it was gripping.

Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2005-12-30
Summary: "An engrossing and distinctive historical novel"

I can heartily recommend Murder on the Middle Fork. It is an eminently readable, entertaining novel. Don Ian Smith and Naida West started with a locally notorious murder of 1917 (locally in Idaho), and worked back via a combination of primary sources (such as the coroner and the man who hauled the body to the family, as well as contemporary newspaper reports) and literary license (imagination and insight) to develop a story of how the murder happened -- motivation and circumstances. The characters, both real and fictitious, are well drawn, the dialogue effective (much use of dialect, but appropriate), and the story gripping. It is not so much history as such as it is fiction inspired by a real murder and drawing on the location and the culture and events of the time. I found it hard to put down.