Publisher Description
She came to solve the most famous disappearance in spy history. She didnโt plan on falling for the answer.
Broke, one viral season behind her, and betting everything on a comeback, true-crime podcaster Margo Devine rolls into Pelican Cay, Florida โ population sign with the number peeled clean off โ chasing the ghost that vanished spycraftโs biggest secret two decades ago. The trail is cold. The town is warm. And the bait-shop owner pouring her coffee is the most charming man sheโs met in years.
His name is Sonny Pell. Heโs folksy, beloved, terrible at small talk in a way that reads as charm, and he gives out fishing advice like scripture. Never set the hook too early, he tells the tourists.
He should know. Twenty-odd years ago, Sonny was the operative the intelligence world called the Heron โ the courier who walked out of the Halcyon affair and disappeared with the one thing everyone was still hunting. Heโs spent two decades being so reliably, boringly local that no one thought to look.
Then Margo showed up with a microphone.
Her podcast is a flare in the night sky, and itโs waking up people whoโve been waiting a very long time to collect. As a preening rival swoops in to steal her story, an old operation comes roaring back to life, and the secret Sonny mounted in plain sight โ a moth-eaten stuffed heron over the cash register โ is about to detonate at the townโs annual fishing tournament, live, in front of everyone.
Margo is falling for the exact man she has to expose to save her career.
She just doesnโt know it yet.
The reader does.
A warm, wickedly funny Gulf-Coast caper for fans of Finlay Donovan Is Killing It, Vera Wongโs Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, and The Thursday Murder Club โ where the secretโs hiding in plain sight, the romance is a slow burn, and the whole townโs about to find out at once.
Catch and Release is the first Hollis Nash comic mystery.ย ย 
Catch and Release: A Comic Crime Mystery by Hollis Nash
Tanya’s rating: 5 of 5 stars
Catch and Release is a standalone Crime Romance that some readers describe as a โcrime comedyโ with a Carl Hiaasenโstyle vibe. Since Iโve only read one Hiaasen book, the satire and irony didnโt fully land for meโbut that didnโt stop me from enjoying the story.
This story grabbed my attention right away. Every time life forced me to put the book down, I just wanted to get back to it and find out what happened next.
I loved Sonny Pell and Margo Devine. Their personalities feel like oldโschool Floridaโgritty, quirky, and unforgettable. Sonny, especially, is a wonderfully salty character.
A compelling, entertaining read that held my interest from beginning to end.
About Hollis Nash:
Hollis Nash writes comic crime fiction โ the kind where the plot is a real mystery and the mystery keeps getting interrupted by people being ridiculous. Think small Florida towns, big secrets, slow-burn romance, and at least one animal that steals a scene it wasn’t in. The Dead Reckoning series begins with Catch and Release: a broke true-crime podcaster comes to a sleepy Gulf-coast town to solve the most famous disappearance in spy history โ and starts falling for the bait-shop owner who happens to be the answer she’s hunting. She doesn’t know. The reader does. That’s the whole trick. For readers who like their mysteries warm, their comedy sharp, and their heroes rusty. In the tradition of Carl Hiaasen and Christopher Moore. Hollis hates cliffhangers! Nash writes in the Pacific Northwest, allegedly, and is usually behind on a deadline.
