"Incident at Dead River Junction"

There is a town in Vermont called White River Junction and I grew attached to the name and wanted to use a form of it for the title of one of my novels. I initially did just that for my fourth novel in the Jim Buchanan series, Incident at Cold River Junction. A fictional ghost town set in Montana, I really liked the name, Cold River Junction. However, I recently discovered that Cold River Junction is the name of an actual business in Concan, Texas and so I am considering renaming my novel, Incident at Dead River Junction.

My First Paragraphs

Montana Harvest -

The thunderstorm continued to bully its way onto the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. In an old two-room unheated cabin with tarpapered roof and a few plywood-covered windows, the extended Robinson family huddled in the lone bedroom. Sandy Robinson, an eighteen-year-old unwed mother of three held her oldest in her arms. Each crash of thunder caused the four year old to dig his fingers into her shoulders. The clasp of the chained locket around her neck loosened each time that he did.

Mystery at Little Bitterroot -

A long, inquisitive sniff, a lick, a bite, and then the hungry scavenger braced its hind legs. Tugging at her find and shaking her head, the coyote loosened the carcass from the riverbank. Behind her, the field of buffalograss, a shade of gold under the Montana sun, darkened as a weather front crept across the landscape.

The Killing Zone -

At 8:47 PM, Mick, dressed in blue jeans, a short sleeve t-shirt and a black leather jacket drew a long drag from his cigarette as he stood outside the liquor store with his friend Ray who shooed a moth that seemed interested in the overhead light above the door. A young, attractive woman, professionally dressed, walked up to them. Mick stepped out of the way.

Incident at Dead River Junction -

Parked on the breakdown lane of a lonely stretch of US Highway 228, just west of Taylor, sat a Montana Highway Patrol cruiser. Tired, anxious, and on the back end of a ten-hour shift, Officer McCoy stared at the sun as it continued its slow dive behind the Cabinet Mountain Range. Aroused by the intrusion of smoldering aspen riding on a crosscurrent summer breeze, he rolled down his window.

Incident at Cold River Junction

I've begun writing the fourth novel in the Jim Buchanan Series, Incident at Cold River Junction. 

"When a trip home takes a scenic detour through a Montana ghost town, Sheriff Jim Buchanan and his teenage nephew Josh are faced with more than they bargained for. Alone and cut off from help, Jim must protect Josh from the mysterious inhabitants of Cold River Junction, face off against a familiar and evil adversary, and discover a way home."