Monty was born, grew up and educated just north of San Francisco. He graduated from the University of California in Berkeley with a degree in English Literature. After he nailed the sheepskin to the wall, he threw his backpack, stove and sleeping bag into the splinter-y, plywood bed of his F-100 and drove forthwith to the edge of the Sierras. His walking staff was a tube stuffed with two rods: one for spin casting, the other for flies. With it, he probed every trail, creek and stillwater in search of wild trout. He continued this exercise almost every week all season long for the next eight years. If this sounds extreme, it was not. This was the best time of his life.
In 1995, he produced an hour-long documentary for the esteemed, still-extant conservation and trout management organization, California Trout. Founder Richard May was the first great man Orrick ever knew in a career meeting several score famous men, women, Senators, serial murderers and former Presidents. May’s conservation ethic stood out and continues to inspire. During this time, Orrick assisted running the fly fishing department at Western Sport Shop in San Rafael with his first mentor, book curator, outdoor writer and master fly tyer, Eugene “Fario” Fassi whom he regularly met to open the shop at 6am on Saturday and Sunday. A quarter hour later—when Orrick finally arrived—Gene instructed him on punctuality, trustworthiness and developing a sense of humor. He also demonstrated the steps in tying #18 Flashback Pheasant Tail nymph that could catch fifty perch without unraveling. At Western, Orrick became friends with fellow San Anselmo resident Marc Reisner. Marc’s book, Cadillac Desert had been assigned to him in his senior year at Cal; he admired the book deeply then and ever since.
Reisner’s views about federal water policy and the Army Corps’ frequently self-serving motives resurfaces in this text’s consideration of Klamath Basin water allocation. Unfortunately, Marc died more than twenty years ago. His deep thinking regarding our shrinking water resources out west was prescient and stays current.
Though he never got the golden trout country out of his system, Orrick did settle down. He married and had a family!–his wife, Carolyn and twin daughters, Brooke and Beth. Each had a part in the production of this book, especially Carolyn who figured out a way to give him a year to finish writing it. What a girl!
For twenty five years, Monty has been telling stories with pictures–earning his daily bread as a photojournalist–which carried over to the visual style of his writing. The Crater Lake Murders is his second book of nonfiction. His first, Feeding the Beast, is a journalism text about how to tell memorable stories with words, sound and pictures. Of the few hundred copies sold, about half
were purchased by students of Pacific University professor Grant McOmie—great friend to Monty and his co-author Tim Gordon. Besides the books, Orrick has contributed short stories to the two best fly fishing periodicals out there, The Drake and California Fly Fisher. His writing there revisits the Sierra adventures, including drinking whiskey from a plastic flask by campfire light, which he recommends. (Compensate for elevation.)
The Crater Lake murders first came to his attention in 2011. He began his research in earnest while preparing a three minute TV story and “sweeps piece” about the case in 2013 for the ABC affiliate in Portland, Oregon. Fulfilling a Freedom of Information Act request from that time—in late December 2015–the FBI furnished the entirety of its investigation to the author. Contained in seven, 300-page files, Orrick studied and highlighted the contents then filed it away–for several years. Hidden away in a file cabinet but not forgotten, the unfairness of the murders bothered him. What really happened to Jones and Culhane? Who killed these men? A breakthrough came in early 2020 when, after comparing crime scene photography to satellite images, he discovered the exact location inside the park where the men had been killed–unknown since the 1950s. Another year of research and interviews pushed all the pieces into place. He devoted himself full time to the project in 2021. Finally, the book was released in Summer 2023 by Genius Publishing.
So, as Monty’s mother used to threaten before laying the table for Thanksgiving, “This took a lot of work. You had better enjoy it.”
See his interview on AM Northwest: https://katu.com/amnw/am-northwest-books-authors/monty-orrick-the-crater-lake-murders
