by Bill Stackhouse

A Catskills community is rocked by a dog who digs up a famous stolen diamond and Sicilians who have sworn a vendetta for a World War II crime. Sicily, World War II. The Allied landing has begun. Will the Italians fight with the Germans, or run? The answer leads a German officer to a murderous act and the theft of a Sicilian family heirloom. Ulster County, New York, the present. The Catskills community is the perfect, peaceful place for a widowed mother to raise her son, work in her brother's pub, and date the chief of police. Young Danny and his ace dog love to fish and make two friends, both old men, who share their stream with him. Nature's generosity and Danny's skill is such that fish becomes a regular menu item at the pub. All goes swimmingly until one day, the dog digs up a pouch containing the long missing Isabela Pendant. More shocking, someone soon shoots the senior gentleman, the one who is married to toothsome Cynthia. He falls into the stream, but a young Protestant priest fishes out the dying man and hears his last confession. Chief McAvoy would like to know what it was, but Fr. John's lips are sealed. In Greene County, just to the north, a luxurious retirement home houses Don Vittorio Gianelli, brother of the long dead Contessa whose dazzling diamond has now reappeared. Chief McAvoy finds this coincidence hard to swallow. But no matter how he prods, no information falls his way. In the end, like a fisherman, he relies upon guile to reel in his killer...
This atmospheric and unusually plotted novel balancing hardboiled and softer elements adds up to a knockout debut for Bill Stackhouse.