Catch and Release, by Mark Thielman

"Catch and Release," by Mark Thielman, in The Fish That Got Away, edited by Linda M. Rodriquez, Wildside Press, 2021.

This is the seventh appearance in this column by my fellow SleuthSayer.

I let a murderer go today.

That's how the tale begins. You might feel that the prosecutor is being a little hard on himself, because he did try his best to get Thomas Edmonds convicted.  (Didn't he?)

He walks you through the trial, through every maddening moment that caused his case to slip away.  And through it all Edmonds sits there, as unconcerned as a bystander at a church picnic.  No wonder the narrator is so upset.  But then unexpected things happen.

You could argue that this story is a stunt. Ah, but it is a satisfying stunt.