James Paddock's Blog

Joan Marilyn Bochmann (pictured in the black hat) passed away in 2013, a victim of lung cancer. Before she died she asked her sister, Janet Muirhead Hill (pictured right), to finish the book she started, what was to be her second novel. What an honor and responsibility! After nearly 7 years and dozens of drafts, Janet did in fact fulfill her sister's wish. Following Joan’s characters and plot clues, Janet finished the novel, PRISM, and released it the summer of this year, 2020. Besides, PRISM, Joan wrote Wild Horses of Absaroka.

Debra Randall is gone. Her father, her boyfriend, her best friend—all the men who love her, each in their own way—are devastated. Has she only run away or has something much more dire befallen her? From California to Canada, the search goes on. Detective Patrick Garrigan investigates every facet, certain that each of the men in Ms. Randall’s life know something that they aren’t telling, that they are withholding secrets and for each of them it is personal and unique, each secret holding an important key. On top of that, what is it about the neckless that he’s told she wears, a chunk of glass shaped like a prism that seems to send her into a trance or hypnotic state? So many questions that take him and the men in her life on a journey that none of them were expecting.

Set in the shadow of the last few years of the Vietnam War, Joan Bochmann began weaving a story of intrigue stretching from California to Texas to Colorado to Montana to Canada. Unfortunately, cancer took Joan from this earth much too early, leaving a great story unfinished; however, her sister and accomplished author in her own right, Janet Muirhead Hill, took up the story and in memory of Joan Bochmann carried it through to a most satisfying ending. I definitely enjoyed this tale of mystery within layers of puzzles where the three men in Debra Randall’s life—father, best friend and boyfriend—continually butt heads, determined to find the most important woman in their lives. Has she run away or was she taken by the man who, for some crazy reason, wants her dead? From chapter to chapter, the story holds its suspense. Thank you, Janet Hill, for carrying through with your promise to your sister, Joan, to finish PRISM, her final life's work. I’m sure she is perched on a cloud, smiling down, proud of her little sister. The next time I hear thunder I’ll be thinking that might be Joan shouting, “Job well done!”

To find out more about Prism and Janet Muirhead HIll,
feel free to check out her website.

Wild Horses of Absaroka by Joan Bochmann

Where the Anguish of a Soldier Meets the Land of the Crow, (2010) which has won many awards and accolades and is still available.

When Matt Reed returns from Vietnam, eager to get back to the Wyoming family ranch and forget the horrors of war, he finds the ranch has been stripped of livestock and his father a mere shadow of his former self. Matt's mother is gone, a victim of cancer, and his father has mortgaged the ranch in his effort to save her. The new bank president, Paul Pringle, is a former high school nemesis and the man who married Matt's girlfriend after Matt was sent to a distant and unpopular war. Determined to foreclose—and gain access to the Reed Ranch's rich mineral deposits—Pringle gives Matt a very short time to raise a whole lot of money. How can a broken soldier with no resources possibly save the ranch? The only way Matt can think of to raise the money is to capture, train, and sell wild mustangs roaming the nearby mountains. He begins this venture only to discover that the horses are grazing on the Crow Indian Reservation. Desperate, he decides to hunt and capture them anyway, only to be thwarted and punished by his Crow neighbors. Ironically, the same wild horses and the Crow nation will contribute to Matt's ability to save his ranch—in a most unusual way.

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