A Trout in the Sea of Cortez: A Novel - Tapa dura

As Dennis Pratt reluctantly prepares for an anniversary trip to Mexico with his wife, Patricia, he becomes convinced that she is having an affair when she loses twenty pounds--an obsession that changes the whole course of their lives.

In the tradition of Carl Hiaasen, this mirthful debut tracks the mid-life chaos of one man's world as he travels from the winter of North Dakota to the beaches of Mexico. Dennis Pratt doesn't want to go to Mexico. He's a guy knocking on forty, with a dead-end job, a luke-warm marriage, a distant daughter and an incredible lack of enthusiasm for anything in life. So little wonder that he's not very enthusiastic about the trip south of the border his wife's got planned. And as he becomes increasingly convinced that his wife is having an affair with a local alpha-male, Pratt finds himself putting his job and his marriage at risk. He befriends a shifty father and daughter who live in a camper near the country club where Pratt is trying to learn how to play golf. He meets a mysterious artist and may or may not be falling in love with her. And his imagination runs wild about his wife and daughter. Only when en route to Mexico, and at their villa on the Sea of Cortez, do the pieces start to fall into place, with disastrous results. A quirky cocktail of obsession, adultery, revenge, hazardous waste, golf, murder, fatherhood and love, "A Trout in the Sea of Cortez" is a smart, sarcastic and riveting mid-life crisis murder mystery.