The new release in the Lee Jarrett odyssey, from the author of Burnt Tree Fork...
“In Bonnell’s gripping tale of revenge, murder, and redemption, he also takes an insightful look at human suffering and truth. Felt like, at times, I was battling the tarpons myself in those fly fishing scenes ... a good read.” —DALE SEXTON, owner of Dan Bailey’s Fly Shop
This new novel picks up several years after Lee voyaged deep into the mountains of West Virginia searching for clues about his grandfather and an alleged double-murder. Now Lee is living in the Florida Keys, recovering from the death of his wife, and learning to fly fish for tarpon. He discovers new romantic interests, both in fly fishing, and in Mary Lou who is also in the process of breaking free from her past. Together they develop a plan that leads them to Montana where they can start fresh. They are joined in the adventure by Lee’s aging uncle, who acts as sort of a spiritual mentor, and also a young man they adopted from a monastery, who may be clairvoyant, may be a savant, or may just be crazy.
This novel is written in the style of classic literature that readers of Sinclair Lewis, Saul Bellow, or Norman Mailer will appreciate.
From the pages:
"In the failing light far upriver, he caught a movement. Sliding out of the fog, like in some mushroom-laced dream, was the tipped-up prow of a wooden drift boat, the perfect symmetry of its curving gunwale unmistakable, and also with that same fine, wondrous arc along its prow ... he saw something else about the shape in the darkening mist that troubled him. Running from the water up through the figure and over its head was a long, thin silhouette, a dark skipping line, its missing parts shrouded in the thickening fog. Lee realized it was most likely a pole being used to push and steer the boat, as Josh occasionally did … but also like Charon, the boatman in Egyptian mythology used to ferry the souls of the dead to the other side. Lee tried shoving that last notion from his mind, but it continued to nag at him."