Switchback: A Patrick Flint Novel

Switchback: A Patrick Flint Novel

Book 1: Patrick Flint
TAKEN meets LONGMIRE
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Shout-outs

"Best books I've read in a long time."
Kiersten Marquet
Thriller author
"A thriller that has it all...nail-biting suspense."
Danielle Girard
USA Today bestselling author
"As many twists and turns as a high-country trail."
Reavis Z. Wortham
Two time winner of The Spur
"Highly atmospheric and nearly crackling with suspense. Highly recommend!"
Libby Kirsch
Emmy award winning reporter and author

Synopsis

Taken meets Longmire
When Patrick Flint's daughter goes missing on a mountain vacation, the adventurous young doctor will have just one shot to get her back.

“Best book I've read in a long time!” — Kiersten Marquet, author of Reluctant Promises

4.7-star series rating.

"A roller-coaster ride from the first page to the last!" — Merry, Amazon reader

All Patrick Flint wants is a peaceful getaway in the Wyoming mountains for his rare days off. He's grown weary of the bicentennial celebrations, the angry families of patients, the rash of campers coming down from the mountains high on speed, and the midnight call-outs to cover for the town veterinarian. When his wife Susanne balks at the trip just as they're walking out the door—leaving him to go it alone with his lovestruck teenage daughter Trish and eager-but-adolescent son Perry—Patrick is wounded but determined, despite the news of a murderer escaping custody on the other side of the mountains.

After two days of rain-soaked horseback riding to hunt and fish, Patrick's gotten nothing but weird encounters, wet socks, and a whiny daughter. So, on the third day, when Trish begs to stay behind at their campsite to read, Patrick is secretly relieved.

Meanwhile back in town, Susanne's had a rough time of it herself. A break-in, a wreck, and a premonition that something is terribly wrong with her family. Unable to ignore her growing fears, she enlists the help of a Wyoming-tough neighbor, and the two women make for the mountains.

When Patrick and Perry return to camp, Trish has vanished, along with the horses, the truck, and the trailer. Clues point in opposite directions. Did she run off with the boy whose note Patrick found at the camp? Or was she taken—as the hoof marks over their destroyed tent suggest? Whichever it was, the tracks lead into the mountains, not out of them. With help too far away to make it before Trish's trail is washed away, Patrick and Perry embark on a desperate trek into the wilderness to find her, with Susanne not far behind them.

Switchback is the first book in the brand new Patrick Flint series of thrilling mysteries, a spin-off from the What Doesn't Kill You saga. Available in digital, print, and audiobook.

If you like C.J. Box or Craig Johnson, you will love USA Today Best Selling author Pamela Fagan Hutchins' Patrick Flint series. A USA today bestselling and Silver Falchion winning author and former attorney, Pamela and her husband run an off-the-grid lodge on the face of Wyoming's Bighorn Mountains, living out the adventures in her books with rescue dogs and cats and enormous horses.

What Amazon readers are saying about the Patrick Flint Mysteries:

“A Bob Ross painting with Alfred Hitchcock hidden among the trees.”
"Edge-of-your seat nail biter."
"Unexpected twists!"
"Wow! Wow! Highly entertaining!"
“A very exciting book (um... actually a nail-biter), soooo beautifully descriptive, with an underlying story of human connection and family. It's full of action. I was so scared and so mad and so relieved... sometimes all at once!”
“Well drawn characters, great scenery, and a kept-me-on-the-edge-of-my-seat story!”
"Absolutely unputdownable wonder of a story."
"Must read!"
"Gripping story. Looking for book two!"
"Intense!"
"Amazing and well-written read."
"Read it in one fell swoop. I could not put it down."

Buy Switchback for a pulse-pounding mystery today!

(Book 2 in the Patrick Flint Series and Books 1-15 in the What Doesn't Kill You Series are available, too.)

Release date: November 15, 2019

Publisher: Skipjack Publishing

Print pages: 430

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Behind the book

 

For my dad, who gave me all my best traits and a few of my others. You have always been my hero, Papasan—totally book worthy!—and I love you.

And for Eric, without whom there would be no books, for so many reasons.

 

 

When I got the call from my father that he had metastatic prostate cancer spread into his bones in nine locations, I was with a houseful of retreat guests in Wyoming while my parents (who normally summer in Wyoming) were in Texas. The guests were so kind and comforting to me, as was Eric, but there was only one place I wanted to be, and that was home. Not home where I grew up, because I lived in twelve places by the time I was twelve, and many thereafter. No, home is truly where the heart is. And that meant home for Eric and me would be with my parents. 

I was in the middle of writing two novels at the time: Blue Streak, the first Laura mystery in the What Doesn’t Kill You series, and Polarity, a series spin-off contemporary romance based on my love story with Eric. I put them both down. I needed to write, but not those books. They could wait. I needed to write through my emotions—because that’s what writers do—with books spelling out the ending we were seeking for my dad’s story. Allegorically and biographically, while fictionally.

So that is what I did, and Dr. Patrick Flint (aka Dr. Peter Fagan—my pops—in real life) and family were hatched, using actual stories from our lives in late 1970s Buffalo, Wyoming as the depth and backdrop to a new series of mysteries, starting with Switchback and moving on to Snake OilSawbones, Scapegoat, Snaggle Tooth, and Stag Party. I hope the real life versions of Patrick, Susanne, and Perry will forgive me for taking liberties in creating their fictional alter egos. I took care to make Trish the most annoying character since she's based on me, to soften the blow for the others. I am so hopeful that my loyal readers will enjoy them, too, even though in some ways the novels are a departure from my usual stories. But in many ways they are the same. Character-driven, edge-of-your-seat mysteries steeped in setting/culture, with a strong nod to the everyday magic around us, and filled with complex, authentic characters (including some AWESOME females). 

I had a wonderful time writing these books, and it kept me going when it was tempting to fold in on myself and let stress eat me alive. For more stories behind the actual stories, visit my blog on my website: http://pamelafaganhutchins.com. And let me know if you liked the novels. 

Thanks to my dad for advice on all things medical, wilderness, hunting, 1970s, aeronautical, nature, and animal. I hope you had fun using your medical knowledge for murder!

Thanks to my mom for printing the manuscript (over and over, in its entirety) as she and dad followed along daily on the progress.

Thanks to my husband, Eric, for brainstorming with and encouraging me and beta reading the Patrick Flint stories despite his busy work, travel, and workout schedule.  And for moving in to my parents’s barn apartment with me so I could be closer to them during this time.

p.s. Dad has defied the odds and is doing great. His goal is to live with cancer, and die from old age.

 

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