3.5 stars

Author

American. MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in both fiction and poetry. Award-winning adventure writer with numerous magazine articles and several nonfiction books to his credit. This is his fifth novel.

In brief

Jack from Mr Heller’s 2019 novel The River returns, three years older and hopefully wiser after the events described in that book. It’s the near future. America is now in its third year living with the pandemic. Our boy is a well-educated, remarkably literate, tobacco chewing cowboy who is helping his father out on his farm when he heard about a job as a fishing guide at an exclusive upmarket mountain retreat in Colorado owned by a British biotech billionaire. It is soon apparent that there’s more than fishing going on at the closely guarded (keep out or get shot, or mauled by dogs) property next door. Jack and his charge, a famous singer and genuine fishing enthusiast known at the resort as Alison K to preserve her privacy, bond over flies (of the feathery kind, rather than insect) and beers. They agree something suss is going on. It appears that the “treatments” the rich folk get stretch well beyond massage and sauna. Or ethics. Stuff happens. Resolution occurs.

Writing

I’m no fisherman but the descriptions of fly fishing, and particularly the streams and mountains where it takes place, are worth the purchase price all by themselves. The mystery part felt a little derivative to me, albeit a sold attempt at exploring nefarious possibilities in the post-pandemic world (if you’re rich).

Bottom line

The River was about two college kids and a wilderness canoe trip gone wrong: ground more familiar to Mr Heller one presumes. He tries hard to establish his mystery chops here. Perhaps too hard.