Jeff’s Reviews > A Field Guide to Murder & Fly Fishing > Status Update

"Steal Your Face": 5/5 - less satisfying, maybe, than some of the preceding stories, but such a visionary, unforgettable ride. Jeff follows the Grateful Dead to Red Rocks.

"A week of rain at the end of May turns the lawns green, and the buds on the beeches and maples burst overnight in leaves so perfectly formed they seem altogether too good to be true."

"The Dragon of Conchagua": 5/5 - treated to another Amazonian story, this one just as vivid and transporting, with a more definitive and yet more enigmatic ending. Brilliant.

“There’s no dragon, John. I don’t know why you keep bringing it up.”John shook his head, puzzled. “I never mentioned anything about a dragon.”“But you were thinking it. If you think it, you don’t have to say it.”


So good.

"A Winter Break in Rome": 5/5 - Tim Weed's stories always surprise me in one way or another. This one was unconventional in its pacing with the conflict sort of peaking halfway through the story, leaving the reader to figure out how the thematic resolution was still developing. Understated, heartbreaking, undeniable.

There seems to be something ugly in the air, a whiff of ancient savagery seeping up through the flagstones.

"The Afternoon Client": 5/5 - perhaps the titular murder--another flawless, compelling story. This one about a fishing guide.

"Tower Eight": 5/5 - this is one of the best short stories I've ever read--my review wouldn't do it justice. Reminds me a little of "The Last Rung on the Ladder."

Weed's ability to infuse a sentence with layers of meaning is like an artist creating a complex two-dimensional image with depth out of layers of paint:
"It must have been even better from his perspective, twenty or thirty feet above the snow, wind whistling around his ears, his shadow tracking across the dimpled slope like the shadow of a soaring bird, or an alter ego, or the final glimpse of a departing soul."