Dud was down at The Lunker Hole on Lewis Creek before it even turned yellow in the east. He had some thinking to do, and, as everyone knows, there’s no better way to think than fly fishing.

Just about the time Dud could make out The Lunker’s rock at the head of the hole, he had gotten a tiny midge tied on some leader and sent it on its way to the general vicinity of the rock.

It floated slowly downstream without being bothered by piscatorial pirates, and when the line told him he’d reached as far downstream as he could on this cast, he picked it up, waved it dry and cast back up at the rock.

Okay, now is a decent thinking time, so it was well to get started.

It’s the book, of course. 

Why do I do it? He asked himself. It doesn’t make any sense. If I spent that time washing dishes down at the Mule Barn truck stop, I’d make more money. And the title? I like Murder in the Soggy Bottoms, but my friends keep calling it The Duchess and the Truck Driver. Maybe I should change it? 

Okay, pick up the fly and send it back up to that rock again.

And the love stuff … the truck driver and the duchess are nuts about each other and have a kid in common from when he was in Europe on special assignment the last time. And the language problem. The duchess speaks a couple of European languages and the truck driver is from the South. But if they are so different, how did they have a kid together?

Cast upstream again. Wait. False cast until the fly is dry then … yeah, like that.

You know, it doesn’t make any sense, but some people actually write more than one book!

They have to be cheating somehow… they’ve GOT to be cheating…