Deadly Catch

Deadly Catch is something of a throwback. I was reminded of the Travis McGee novels by John D MacDonald as our retired US marine comes down to Florida for some serious fishing. Sadly, on one of his first trips out, he snags a dead body. The local law seem to work on the basis there’s no such thing as a coincidence. Here’s a tough guy with military experience. When he appears, he conveniently finds the body of a local woman who’s been taking drugs. Where does he find her? In almost exactly the same place as a bale of high quality marijuana was washed up earlier in the month.

So our hero is being set up to take the fall for the murder and perhaps the drug dealing and distribution. He finds this annoying and sets out to catch all the bad guys. It’s all fairly routine as our initially passive hero is forced to defend himself against increasingly deadly attacks. In the end, he avoids dying, has all the evidence necessary to convict all those who should be convicted, and has a woman by his side. Not particularly impressive but it does have the virtue of being quite short.