cantaraville | cantarabooks

by the author of

Descending Into Heaven
Tales from the Last Resort
Into the Woods
Quality Time

Have you ever wanted to turn back the clock and right a wrong you committed in your past?

For Jacob Stoneham, a glum, middle-aged judge unable to cope with the frenetic pace of a decaying city, that chance comes when a shaft of sunlight pierces through the summer fog one dreary morning - hurling him back in time to 1974 and into his younger self.

In this San Francisco, Stoneham lives again as Stony, Vietnam vet, working stiff, comrade and roommate to his war buddies, Moose and Hemp. They share good times, good rock music and good pot, and when each of them wins the girl of his dreams, it all seems perfect.

But then Hemp is arrested for murder. Will the choice Stony made that fateful day - bringing with it death and lost love - be replayed? Or will he seize the chance to right the wrong he did and change not only his fate - but the fate of his beloved city by the Bay?

Originally published in 2002 by Brave New Books under the CityFables imprint, A Hole in the Fog is being republished by Cantarabooks in 2008.

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"Meanwhile, after its necessarily somber beginning, this book turns out to be a whole lot of fun. An intricate tale with a number of mysteries to solve, and some pretty surprising solutions. Complex like life, with a number of plots and subplots. Much food for thought.

"Matheny also quickly identifies in two pages what, five years later, Gregg Easterbrook wrote an entire book about. (The Progress Paradox, which I haven't read.)

"The book moves deftly from subject to subject in a quite insightful fashion, and for me to identify them one by one would be slow and painful for all of us. Such as the most accurate portrait I've read of San Francisco in the 1970s. Michael Matheny is the first author to ever remind me of Gerd Balke, and that's not a compliment I give lightly.

"(A couple of small scenes remind me of something that some fella named Michael LaRocca wrote a long time ago, but I don't suppose we really care about that.)

"In short, you really want to download, and read, this wonderful book. It is thoughtful, powerful, moving, and a joy to read. It'll stay with you for a long time."