The Whitefish Novel

An old man regales his grandchildren with tall tales from his days working on the railroad, before the influx of moneyed newcomers. A group of Realtors at an art show criticize the city’s Critical Areas Ordinance. An overworked young newspaper editor struggles to manage her office. Environmentalists sit around a table in the Railway District discussing how to rid the Flathead Valley of unsightly billboards. A thug out on parole from Deer Lodge is busted in his trailer for filming adult movies of underage girls.

While many of these scenes may have occurred in Whitefish, they all take place in the anonymously written Web site, TheWhitefishNovel.com, an ongoing and unfinished online murder mystery that has been updated regularly for more than six months.

Whoever the writer is, their knowledge of Whitefish is nearly encyclopedic, with descriptions of everything from the topography of the difficult ski runs at Big Mountain to the common sights and rituals of downtown Whitefish during the Winter Carnival. The anonymous author is also obviously paying close attention to local current events, with the two chapters added last week including a reference to the recent anti-sprawl group that has vandalized developments in Columbia Falls and Bigfork.

The accoutrements of the wealthy are keenly observed in the novel, clear in the description of O’Malley’s mansion, from the cynical perspective of the investigating detective, on the night of the murder: “The living room, or whatever it was that an architect would call it, was filled with the usual Cowboy-chic artwork - just rustic enough to make the owner feel like he'd finished a hard day mending fences, but expensive enough to warrant an ooh or aah from visitors drooling with envy.”

Review from the Flathead Beacon: http://www.flatheadbeacon.com/