Stalking Throckmorton

Chris Throckmorton races a killer to find a treasure hidden by his great-grandfather.

A lawyer hands Chris Throckmorton an 82-year-old letter that claims his dying great-grandfather Otto Kessler stashed the family assets in an office under his brewery. Those assets could be worth $50 million or nothing in today's market. The village has demolished the brewery and buried the office. Murder victims are found in homes once owned by the Kessler's. The crooked village mayor and a con man learn of Otto's letter and force Throckmorton to make them partners. An inept crew slows the excavation to the office, and security cameras show the killer has visited the dig. Once in the office, the men find stock certificates in companies that went bankrupt between 1950 and 1990. His partners quit. Throckmorton finds another treasure in the office, but not the one Otto put there. To keep it, he must face the killer in the dark.

Raised on a Wisconsin dairy farm, Gary F. Jones went to high school in a small town dominated by the old, brick brewery built by his great-grandfather and grandfather. He grew up hearing stories of the tunnels and caverns under the brewery and the town's main streets. The brewery, used since prohibition as a canning factory and later a feed mill, was demolished in 2015. The lot is still empty, though the old brewery office building and bottling plant are still standing. Jones practiced veterinary medicine, before returning to graduate school.