Description
When Qwilleran strolls into the Press Club to have lunch with his old buddy Arch Riker, and discovers that its familiar "smoky ambiance" has been replaced with several fresh coats of varnish, ferns, and wall-to-wall carpeting, he senses he is about to enter phase one of an all-out mope.
A change of pace is definitely in order. So, in spite of Arch's friendly warnings, and the tantalizing temptation to do some investigative reporting again, Qwill deposits Koko and Yum-yum in the back seat of his new green car and heads north to Mooseville where an old family friend, "Aunt Fanny", keeps a cottage on a lake.
But the transition from city to country has Qwill carping in no time. Mooseville is not exactly the serene sylvan setting Qwill had envisioned. When he samples a little of the local colour on a 3-hour boat trip, his line snags on a very fishy corpse.