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California Fly Fisher Mystery Jim Tenuto has never bought me a drink or a meal, underwritten an exotic fishing trip, or brokered a sweetheart loan for a recreational property that I could quickly sell back to him at a healthy profit. Not that I would have necessarily refused: I've just never met the guy. To me – I swear – he's just another byline in California Fly Fisher , someone with whom I exchange the occasional e-mail about books each of us plans to review in the next issue. I mention this in case after reading further you're tempted to demand that the editor initiate an investigation of corruption among “Paper Hatch” contributors. I assure you that won't be necessary. The Lyons Press has just published what looks to be the first in a series of mystery novels by Tenuto, featuring a fly-fishing guide by the name of Dahlgren Wallace. “I'm in trouble,” I thought, when I heard about it. “No way is the editor going to let Tenuto review his own book. He's also not going to want to pan it himself, since by doing so he'd probably lose another contributor who's willing to work for scraps of tippet material.” Clearly I was going to have to be the bad guy. You can imagine my relief in being able to report that Blood Atonement is as crafty a piece of entertainment as anything I've read in a long while. It's imaginative, well plotted, cleverly structured, convincingly told, and enlivened by reference to some interesting and little-discussed events in the history of the American West. It's also quirky, irreverent, and populated by memorable characters who, in the tradition of this kind of novel, are a tad larger than life. That the novel also puts fly fishing at the center of the action and – rarity of rarities – does so both competently and convincingly is no surprise, given who wrote it. Popular suspense or mystery novels are by nature pretty formulaic, but the best of such works manage to inform and delight in equal measure. What was good enough for Cicero is good enough for me. The basic formula isn't complicated. It requires a determined protagonist with an interesting background whose skills can be called upon when the nitty gets gritty. He or she should also have some emotional baggage that adds tension and complicates everyone's behavior. Then something has to happen that demands explanation and/or threatens the protagonist and his friends. That something must be perpetrated by villains who are smart enough to push the good guys to the edge of disaster before succumbing. The protagonist, in defiance of orders from law-enforcement professionals, has to solve things. In Blood Atonement , Tenuto's got the formula wired. Here's the background. The megarich head of an international broadcast news network, married for a while to a famous movie star once prominent in the antiwar movement, buys a big Montana ranch. Horror of horrors, he begins raising buffalo instead of cattle and stops letting anybody else in the region trespass to hunt or fish. (Sound familiar?) Despite these annoying peculiarities, the rich guy's not a bad sort once you excuse his over competitive, control-freak personality. Billionaire he may be, but he likes to fish and cares about the land he bought. Enter Tenuto's protagonist, the estimable Dahlgren Wallace – ex-college jock, ex-Force Recon Marine, fly fisher, fly-fishing guide, hater of things and people Californian – who works for the rich guy as a river keeper. Part of his job is to take the rich guy's guests fly fishing on the ranch's seven miles of private water. The bit about hating Californians is a nice touch, don't you think? The action in Blood Atonement takes place in and around Bozeman, a town in the middle of what was once ranch country that's now attracting a lot of newcomers with nontraditional ideas. Along with the rich guy and Wallace, Tenuto populates the region with old-timer ranchers, their assorted hired hands, a Cattlemen's Association honcho in heel lifts, members of a semi-reclusive Hutterite colony, a smarter-than-he-appears chief of police and his dumbo deputy, a dim but honest bartender/football coach, the obligatory smart-guy friend, a neo-Nazi militia, assorted animal-rights zealots, an FBI agent who likes to nap, and hit men from Utah. Wallace and his supporting cast have to solve a number of interlinked problems. Who, for instance, murdered a software mogul from California? The death occurs while the software guy is fishing with Wallace, and Wallace is arrested. Who really dunnit, and why? And what's that fly reel set up for left-hand wind got to do with anything? There's also the problem of the poisoned buffalos. Local ranchers, already angered at no longer being able to hunt or fish on the rich guy's ranch, are also concerned that his buffalos will spread brucellosis to their cattle. Are the local ranchers doing the poisoning, or is someone else behind it? Toss in a bumbling but dangerous local militia that's running out of operating funds and wants the rich guy's land, even if they have to kill to get it and an animal-rights group that doesn't shy away from violence to stop people from exploiting our furry and finny neighbors. What part do these aberrant nasties play? And is it related to the software mogul's murder? Toss in the police chief, the FBI agent, an ex-military ranch foreman, a preteen Hutterite girl who likes to fish, her thoughtful, pious father, a retired New York professor who now runs a local deli called The Cowboy Vey, a bartender who moonlights for private clubs where members dress rather oddly, and there's more than enough mass to go critical, and of course it does. In a day where most mysteries are being written by women, and probably for an audience of women, it's refreshing to see some testosterone creeping back onto the shelf. I say that as a sensitive, caring, fully evolved and liberated man who also reads Nevada Barr, Jamie Harrison, Sue Grafton, and Janet Evanovich. Fair is fair. I won't spoil a good read by providing more details, save to say that Tenuto has a nice feel for dialogue and description, a good sense for the country around Bozeman, a wicked imagination, and the ability to juggle multiple characters and story lines. I read the book in three sittings – a rare event for me. The biography on the inside back cover of Blood Atonement mentions that Tenuto has been at work on a second Dahlgren Wallace mystery. I'll certainly pony up for a copy. That may also be when I should ask about the sweetheart loan. (September 2005) D.C. Ounty |
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