Ralph Gilly, the owner of a fishing resort in Montana where Chris and Matt vacationed together years ago has a neighbor in trouble, and he's reached out to Matt and Chris for help. Clint Davidson's prize bull has been slaughtered and his foreman, Shorty McMann, has been kidnapped and is being held for ransom. The cattleman has been warned that any involvement by the FBI or other law enforcement agencies will result in the death of his ranch hand. Desperate, the ranch owner offers to pay all expenses if Matt and Chris can fly out together to help. Reluctantly, Roscoe mayor Harold Swenson agrees to let Matt go, with dire consequences promised if he isn't back on time, and he and Chris head West.Meanwhile, back home in Roscoe, Rick Dawley becomes acting chief, and he, Bobcat Walker, and Pete Richards have their hands full with an crazed arsonist who is setting local barns on fire.ADVANCE REVIEWS FOR DEADLY RANSOM"Matt Davis is back-and that's bad news for the bad guys! Matt Davis, the former NYC homicide detective, nearly killed in the line of duty in Joe Perrone Jr.'s debut, As the Twig is Bent, thought he'd found peace and quiet as chief of a small, Upstate police department. But trouble has an uncanny way of finding him. It's kidnapping and arson this time around in Perrone's fifth Matt Davis mystery, Deadly Ransom, "a must-read for his many fans."TOM CONNOR, co-author of the New York Times best-selling "Martha Stuart's Better Than You at Entertaining."* * * *"Generally I do not read serial novels, and I admit to fighting to keep preconceived prejudices at bay . . . to my surprise, Deadly Ransom is a page turner, or in this age of eBooks, a page 'swiper.'Author Joe Perrone Jr. cleverly presents his latest thriller in a psychophrenic storyline. Matt Davis, a former NYPD detective, now Chief of Police in Upstate Roscoe, NY, is asked by an old friend to solve a kidnapping in Montana. Davis convinces his boss, the mayor, to allow him a long overdue vacation, and agrees to work on his own time. As the mystery in Montana plays out, back in Roscoe, an arsonist runs loose, keeping Matt's temporary substitute quite busy. The entire novel has the reader rooting for his replacement to solve the arson mystery so that Matt doesn't return to New York, having solved the Montana crime only to find an unresolved mess at home.Among the things I like are the short chapters. As you read along, there is a comfortable certainty in knowing the action will shift when you reach the end of a chapter. The scene either shifts from protagonist to antagonist, or re-opens the action, either in Montana or Upstate New York.Although part of a series, Deadly Ransom has a strong enough plot and character development to allow it to stand on its own. In fact, your curiosity might be piqued enough to return to the scene of the crime and work your way through the first four books in the series."GREG MILLER, Production Manager, Thomson Reuters; author of Springsteen-A Notion Deep Inside