A Golden Trail of Murder — John Paxson

Montana winters are cold, icy and unforgiving. But when a tough old rancher freezes to death in the teeth of a savage Montana blizzard, only his grandson believes it was murder. He enlists the help of former newshound and sometimes-carpenter Ben Tripp to start poking around and asking questions to hopefully discover the truth.
Tripp's search leads him through an Old West that isn't so old anymore. It's a land of real estate brokers; Hollywood wannabes; militia units with Belgian automatics; corporate farmers with an eye for the bottomland and the bottom-line; and beautiful women.

Tripp also discovers along the way that some things about the West will never change as he unravels a secet as old as the hills and--at least to some--worth more than life itself.