BOOK REVIEW

Ghost Stories of Montana, by Dan Asfar
Lone Pine Publishing, 2007 (192 pages)
Reviewed by Bruce Gourley

A veteran compiler of ghost stories, Dan Asfar turns his attention to Montana in his latest state-themed "Ghost Stories" volume. 
  
 Earlier this autumn I drove over to Nevada City to photograph the fall colors.  I spent the morning alone, wandering around the ghost town that Charles and Sue Bovey lovingly assembled and restored over a span of three decades.  Having visited Nevada City many times, it never occurred to me that this popular summer tourist attraction might yet harbor spirits of the dead.  Asfar, however, sets the record straight.  "Disembodied footsteps" have been heard in the off-season by several employees since the 1970s.  Many guests have reported the sound of an woman "crying loudly" in a nearby hotel room during the night, only to find out the next morning that no one had been in the room that night.  And a ghost has frequented the old bar in the hotel.
   
These and many other ghost stories throughout Montana Asfar chronicles in a conversational style, often quoting eyewitnesses.  Spanning a century and-a-half, this collection of spooky accounts revisits early settlers, prominent citizens, hard-working men, lonely women, and others whose spirits allegedly roam the houses, businesses, battlefields and highways of Montana.  Whether or not this volume turns the reader into a believer, some Montanans are certain they've encountered the spirits of the dead.