Review: Dead Angler

Dead Angler Amazon US PB Amazon Canada PB
Victoria Houston
Class/Genre: Mystery Police Procedural
Series: Loon Lake Fishing Mysteries # 1
Berkley Prime Crime; Apr. 2000; 265 pp

Victoria Houston says, “I think I’ve always wanted to be a writer. My mother told a friend when I was eight that she thought I’d be a writer.”

If DEAD ANGLER is any indication, fans of the mystery novel will be glad Houston followed her muse into fiction after years of commercial writing. Houston suggests that while growing up in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, her primary influences were Willa Cather, Raymond Chandler and Arthur Upfield. Those influences can be seen in this novel.

DEAD ANGLER is set in one of the most exotic locales imaginable, at least the locale is exotic if you are unfamiliar with north woods Minnesota or Michigan or Wisconsin, where this book is rooted. John McFee would understand these woods; the endless acres of tall pines and oaks laced with tiny streams, marshes, and unnamed lakes and back roads. Woods where small towns seem to appear unexpectedly, where folks are friendly and open and will give you lots of advice about how to fish or hunt the surrounding wilderness, and offer a helping hand when you need it most. But those same folks would never in a million years tell you how or when to get to their favorite fishing places, those weedy beds of the lakes where vicious muskies troll, or the rivers and streams where currents rush along and where the big brownies and the rainbow trout lie waiting in shadowed pools.

And even if you found such a rushing trout stream not far from the town of Loon Lake, you wouldn’t want to go probing those murky pools too carefully in your shiny new waders. Because if you did, you just might find a body.

This novel is not without problems. There are troubling shifts in its points of view and the reader may not always be sure who’s in charge. But the story, its pace, tension and environment will carry you along.

There are really two protagonists, whose dogged pursuit of the truth results in a killer’s confession. Paul Osborne is an aging retired dentist, a widower. He is unexpectedly deputized by Loon Lake’s new and intriguing Chief of Police, Lewelleyn Ferris. She’s a tough, experienced feisty woman who takes a refreshing, straight-forward approach to law enforcement, a woman who balances her duties with a passion for fly-fishing those dark pools, even while pursuing killers and family secrets.

Houston demonstrates sensitivity for this environment, much as Laura Lippman does for the streets of Baltimore. She has brought to the printed page that sense of joy and wonderment and satisfaction most people feel when they experience the deep woods. Add to that her sense of the people who live in Loon Lake, a varied and interesting cast of real people with real joys and sorrows. Paul Osborne has real friends and two real adult daughters. The readers Of DEAD ANGLER will get to know the people of Loon Lake and understand, at least a little, their stresses and their triumphs.

Houston has given her characters room to grow and develop and it’s clear she has the talent to make that happen. Even if you care nothing about nature, hunting or fishing, these characters, Paul, Ray, Lew, Ralph and the other residents of Loon Lake will make your vacation seem too short and you’ll want to return as soon as possible, even if sinister happenings do seem to lie in wait.

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Carl Brookins - RAM

Book Review: Dead Angler