Catch and Keep: A Mystery (reviewed)

Catch & Keep: A Mystery
by Ronald Weber
A Write Way Publishing Book, 248p.,
ISBN 1-885173-25-3

Murder and mayhem continue to prevail on the banks of our river. For those who missed Mr. Weber’s first fly fishing mystery, The Aluminum Hatch, the setting is a prime Michigan trout stream equipped with a main stream, lying between the North Down River and South Down River Roads, a South branch, a small town with a bakery, hotel and a bar called the Keg O’ Nails. There is a canoe livery in town and a lodge at a bridge down river on legendary fly water. The names have been changed to protect the innocent but it doesn’t take much of a detective to guess that Mr. Weber fishes out of Gates regularly.
Here Fitzgerald, the lottery winner newspaperman turned fly fishing bum, and Mercy, the local DNR warden and house mate, return and are drawn into investigation of a double murder. The focus is on a grass roots group opposing catch and release. It is a good mystery and more discussion risks spoiling it. For those of us who fish the Au Sable and hang out in Grayling it is an especially enjoyable story.
Mr. Weber is a professor at Notre Dame and former journalist. He writes a crisp clean line. In a world of formula mysteries this is literature. There is fishing advice as well. The book is set in the autumn. As dusk approaches Calvin, the guide, advises, "Skitter it. This time of day, browns get aggressive. They want to smack something.... It gets pitch dark, put on a Muddler, dope it up with flotant so it stays in the film, fish it fast. Browns come out of their spots to take it." And they will. RWOL

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