Deadly Drifts

Macduff Brooks works hard at being a successful fly fishing guide in Wyoming and Montana, plays the oboe marginally, drinks too much Gentleman Jack, and struggles with relationships with women. He’s been Macduff Brooks for only a few years and often wants to return to his earlier existence as the happily married law professor Maxwell Hunt in Florida. It is not to be ― his wife El died in a horrible accident on the Snake River in Wyoming. Depressed, he was increasingly willing to accept “special work” for a federal agency, which resulted in near death from a beating in Guatemala. Saved and returned to Washington by embassy persons, his death from a stroke was announced in the press, and he was placed in a federal protection program with a new identity and location. As Macduff Brooks, he moves between his new homes in Montana and Florida, but cannot escape his Guatemalan assailants who increasingly doubt that he died. A client is killed on his drift boat and his cabin is rigged with bombs, not helping his new relationship with a New York investment banker lady, who owns a ranch next to Brooks’ Montana cabin.