In upstate New York, within the woods, Dutchman’s Creek flows out of the Ashokan Reservoir. Steep-banked and fast-moving, it offers the promise of fine fishing, and of something more, a possibility too fantastic to be true.
When Abe and Dan, two widowers who have found solace in each other’s company and a shared passion for fishing, hear rumours of the Creek and what might be found there, the remedy to both their losses, they dismiss them. Soon, though, the men find themselves drawn into a tale as deep and old as the Reservoir.
It’s a tale of dark pacts, of long-buried secrets, and of a mysterious figure known as the Fisherman. It will bring Abe and Dan face to face with all that they have lost, and with the price they must pay to regain it.
I’ve read a multitude of reviews that have raved about this book, calling it a masterpiece of horror. So, I knew I would buy a copy sooner or later. Even so, the 2023 paperback copy waited on my TBR shelf as I consumed How to Sell a Haunted House and A Light Most Fearful, both of which were bought at the same time, perhaps because I feared disappointment, could not believe it would live up to the hype.
Rarely, have I felt more delighted to be proven wrong. The Fisherman is a nightmarish wonder – part occult horror, part folktale and part cosmic terror.
What would have been a slow start, building character and providing a wealth of background ready to springboard the reader into chaotic hellscapes in part 3, was expertly weaved with foreshadowing that effectively bulldozed any thoughts that this might be a gentle read.
Abe is a believable and sympathetic, if sometimes self-destructive, main character. Fishing has become his lifeline (pun intended) and he is eager to share its solace after Dan, a work colleague, loses his wife and sons in a terrible accident.
Suspicious of Dan’s obvious lie when Abe asks how he learned of Dutchman’s Creek, and discomfited by the tall tale told by the café owner – where they ate breakfast on the morning he and Dan will face unfathomable horrors – Abe brushes his doubts aside and follows his friend to the raging black waters and catches the strangest fish he has ever seen before hurtling into a mind-bending, life-changing nightmare from which he will never truly awake.
A true masterpiece of horror fiction. If you haven’t read The Fisherman yet, I reckon it’s time you do.
If you’d like to check out the book or the author, there are some links below for you:
Happy Goat Horror 
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