The Fisher Boy by Stephen Anable

I just finished The Fisher Boy by Stephen Anable. It is set on Cape Code, mostly in Provincetown with some forays to Truro (although as the author notes, not a depiction of Truro that is geographically accurate) and Gloucester, MA. Mark, the main character, is part of a troupe of improvisational actors who are looking for bookings in the summer.

Bad things happen in Provincetown this summer, beginning with a dead dog deposited on the steps of the party that always opens the season and a murder of a friend of Mark that soon follows. Added to the usual crush of summer residents is a group called the Christian Soldiers and young blond-hair people who are pan-handling and claim to be from a Scandinavian ship. Added to this is the opening of an exhibit of the paintings of Thomas Royall that includes information about a utopian community that he founded in Truro and that ended badly.

All of this comes together to make a kind of Cape Cod-gothic novel. I doubt that it really conforms to the true gothic genre but there is something about the baroqueness of the plot that reminded me of gothic novels.

As a lover of Cape Cod and a lover of mystery novels, I enjoyed this book greatly.