“All royalties from sales of this book will go to help support two charitable groups, Casting for Recovery, which helps women cancer survivors heal body and soul through fly-fishing, and Project Healing Waters, which offers the same service for our returning veterans.”
I have ZERO interest in fishing, but I enjoyed several of the stories in this anthology. My favorite story was “Blue on Black” by Michael Connelly. Connelly’s legendary character, Bosch, is investigating a suspect in a string of murders. Bosch consults Rachel Walling who gives him a possible line of inquiry as to where the suspect might be hiding the bodies. I also liked Brian M. Wipud’s “Granite Hat” where a man in financial crisis tries to hire a retired hit-man to kill him (so his family will get the insurance money). The conclusion stayed with me for days. And T. Jefferson Parker’s “Luck” follows the fate of a man who is unlucky in love who competes with a man with phenomenal luck. Another memorable story!
If you like to fish, you’ll enjoy Hook, Line & Sinister: Mysteries to Reel You In (2010) since fishing is involved in all 16 stories. Even if you’re not a fishing enthusiast (like me) you’ll find a nice selection of mysteries to delight you. GRADE: B+
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
PREFACE– vii
River tears / Ridley Pearson — 1
Cutthroat / Mark T. Sullivan — 39
Blue on black / Michael Connelly — 65
Unsnaggable / John Lescroart — 76
Darmstadt / Andrew Winer — 97
Cherchez la femme / Dana Stabenow — 119
Sandy brook / Don Winslow — 134
The nymph / Melodie Johnson Howe — 147
Tight lines / James W. Hall — 155
Every day is a good day on the river / C. J. Box — 177
Death by honey hole / Victoria Houston — 192
The blood-dimmed tide / Will Beall — 214
Dead drift / Spring Warren — 245
Granite hat / Brian M. Wiprud — 264
Mr. Brody’s trout / William G. Tapply — 276
Luck / T. Jefferson Parker — 300
CONTRIBUTORS — 321
I can’t fish anymore, but I was a big enthusiast back in the day! I loved to fly fish from a float tube, I tied some of my own flies, and practiced catch-and-release faithfully! I imagine I’d enjoy a book of this nature!
Bob, I’ll send you a copy of HOOK, LINE & SINISTER in the next OWLHOOT Box!
I’d appreciate it! I remember Hemingway wrote a story about trout fishing that was enthralling to me!
Bob, I might have a Hemingway short story collection to send you, too!
I have never fished in my life but some good writers are in there.
Patti, yes, there are several top-notch writers in HOOK, LINE & SINISTER. I picked this anthology up a recent Library Book Sale. I had never heard of it or seen a copy of it before that.
No interest in fishing – we did fish at summer camp, particularly on rainy days – but I like the list of authors (I’ve read 10 of them), particularly Michael Connelly, right at the top of my favorites list.
Jeff, the Connelly story was my favorite of all the stories in HOOK, LINE & SINISTER. But some of the others were very good, too!
Seeing Andrew Winer’s byline threw me for a second…the late UK-born Canadian writer Andrew Weiner is an old mild favorite of mine, but I hadn’t read anything about or by the USian Winer till just now…apparently not a CF specialist.
Todd, HOOK, LINE & SINISTER has a unique mix of writers–all profess to love fishing and the causes this book supports. It was published by Countryman Press (a W. W. Norton company).
I have never fished but my grandparents had a cabin on the Coosa river in Alabama and loved to fish. I think I would enjoy short stories with that theme. In one of the books in Bill Pronzini’s Nameless series, Nameless spends a vacation on a lake fishing.
Tracy, there’s enough variety in the stories in HOOK, LINE & SINISTER–all involving fishing in some way–to hold your interest!