The Deadly Hatch weaves a story of remorse, revenge and redemption, with a little time left over to fly fish. Set on both sides of the Cascade Crest, in Washington State, investigative reporter, Miles Cavanaugh and Cascade County Sheriff, Clayton Tweedy, are drawn into deadly game of cat and mouse with the Wolf Pack, a far right antigovernment militia, led by third generation rancher, Wade Barksdale, sole owner of the thirty-thousand acre Cascade River Ranch. Blinded by grief, Barksdale blames Sheriff Tweedy and Cavanaugh, for the death of his only son, Wesley, Jr.
Barksdale is running for governor. He vows to split the state in two. Secede from the westside. Create the new Liberty State, a homeland for patriots. Barksdale strikes a faustian bargain with Colonel Miguel Mateos, the Governor of Sonora and, Elena Carrilla, known as La Reina, a.k.a, "The Queen," leader of a new cartel, El Jaguar, to pay off his cabal of corrupt legislators, judges and county commissioners. Any pretense of his morality, his principles, even his self respect, disappear in a whisky bottle of alcohol fueled avarice, until both the bottle and his very soul are empty.
Cavanaugh's passion for fly fishing is featured throughout. Trout live in beautiful places, he writes. Purple-fired sunsets, jagged snow-laden peaks, cloudless skies so blue they appear black, the sounds of rushing water, the touch of heat, wind and cold, the fresh smells of new rain, connect him to a different reality. Gently releasing a wild native fish is a moment mixed with joy and wonder. Head and shoulders peppered with irregularly shaped black spots, layered over a landscape of violets, blues and greens, like the colors of the rainbow, evoke a time when man was not present."
Cavanaugh's article ,The Deadly Hatch of Crime and Sorrow, is published in print and online in the weekend edition of the New York Standard, his former alma mater. His goal is to "poke the bear," calculated to expose the Wolf Pack and Barksdale's arrangement with the colonel and the cartel. The long read chronicles how the new killer, fentanyl, is cutting a deep, ugly gash through hamlets, bergs and big cities, bleeding an epidemic of crime and sorrow. To Cavanaugh, the suffering, tragedies and overdose deaths, are like an emergence of swarming insects, unstoppable, covering the riverscape, in a deadly hatch.
