Sheriff Bo Tully, in charge of the small Blight County in Idaho, just a ways out of Boise, is kind of laid back but also serious about controlling crime in his county. He is great with the ladies. They all love him. And he has come up with a neat way of ensuring that he will be re-elected every year. He holds a big wild game picnic and everyone is invited. They all love him. It doesn’t hurt that Bo is as honest as the day is long.
In this story Bo is asked by an old friend, Agatha, who is in her eighties, to try to solve the crime of her missing grandfather and his young 14 year old helper. The two had been prospecting up a creek to the north and had found a rich gold deposit that they were going to develop. But just before they could file a claim they completely disappeared.
At the same time, one of Bo’s criminals had escaped from prison and had stated his goal of murdering Sheriff Bo. Kinkaid is a nasty, ruthless man who everyone thinks is crazy. He probably is crazy and would certainly try to kill Bo if he could. But Bo is not going to let Kinkaid rule his life. Bo sets his best deputy onto tracking down Kinkaid and proceeds to help Agatha with finding out what happened to her grandfather. He takes along his own father who was Sheriff before him and an old friend who owns a local café, Dave. This Dave claims to be part Indian and even though Bo is sure the claim is bogus the fact is that Dave is a really good tracker.
It is difficult to come up with clues for an eighty year old murder but Bo and his friends manage to do it. Through clever deduction they figure out approximately where the gold mine was probably located. They investigate a rock slide and find a suspicious rock with a hole drilled in it. This suggests that someone had used dynamite to create the rock slide. So they dig through the rocks and discover the small opening to the mine. Inside they find the rich vein of quartz with ribbons of gold embedded in it. They also find two bodies, both of which had had their hands tied and had been shot in the back of the head. Bo ordered a metal detector and found bullets that had been shot into their victims. He then began to track down the kind of weapon used and eventually found the weapon.
Bo Tully solves this difficult and ancient crime in his own mild laid back way. The mystery is solved and everyone is happy. A most entertaining tale, “The Double-Jack Murders” gets an 8 of 10 on the Weaver meter.
