When a stay-at-home mother of four hauls her kids and camp trailer over Colorado’s Continental Divide, she has no clue that she is leading her family into the epicenter of a murder mystery.
Jean Branning’s priority for the summer is to reunite her family with husband Chad, who works a temporary job in Steamboat Springs. Caught in the turmoil of downsizing, they’ve spent the entire school year apart, except for weekends when weather permitted Chad’s journey home over the Rocky Mountains. Jean, nostalgic for her childhood camping trips, takes a host job in the new Columbine Campground, and the family embarks on their forest adventure.
Taking a break from campground host duties, Jean goes hiking alone and stumbles across a dead body. Later, Josie, her eldest daughter, is endangered when Jean finds a second body after a dance at Steamboat Lake, and Josie catches a glimpse of the killer.
Like protagonists in the mystery novels she reads, Jean’s curiosity about the murders motivates her to investigate. Having chosen a traditional lifestyle, even as waves of feminism washed by her, Jean relishes the freshly awakened independence resulting from her husband’s absence. Jean tries to balance sleuthing with her family’s safety, Chad’s expectations, and preserving her newfound autonomy, while Josie joins her in ferreting out clues.
A homemaker and mother like Jane Jeffry (Jill Churchill), and a nature lover similar to National Park Ranger Anna Pigeon (Nevada Barr), Jean begins an evolution in this mystery, set at the turn of the millennium, from a traditional background toward becoming an independent, assertive critical thinker such as Emma Lord (Mary Daheim).
In Hunter on the Sly, a hunter becomes the hunted, and the victim’s fractured family, an aggressive news reporter, a dead PI, embezzlement, jealousy, and an old love triangle complicate Jean Branning’s efforts to solve the crimes. The wild ride intensifies when Jean and Josie become the hunted.
