His name is Lin Shen, an angler traveling across China.
For twenty-five years, he has chased “strange fish” across the country in an off-road vehicle with a trunk full of fishing gear. Some call him crazy; others call him the “Fish Grim Reaper.” But only he knows that every cast is an attempt to dredge up truths buried beneath the water.
From the alligator gar in Zhiyin Lake, Yuxi, Yunnan, to the fluorescent pike in the Irtysh River, Xinjiang; from heavy-metal pollution in the Huangshi stretch of the Yangtze to a pitch-black monster in Texas, USA: each aquatic aberration that should not exist, and every secret deliberately buried, points to a mysterious codename that has been active in Chinese waters for twenty-six years: S.v.
This is not merely a fishing novel.
It is a passionate story about an ordinary man taking on an international criminal organization single-handedly; a pursuit of truth stretching across the Pacific; and a love letter to every river and lake in China.
The novel weaves in dozens of real news stories and figures, including the Zhiyin Lake alligator gar, the Yangtze mass fish die-off, pike swallowing ducks, and Deng Gang’s career as a fishing champion. Through fiction, it gives voice to real pain.
What Lin Shen’s fishing rod brings up is not fish:
It is truth, justice, and an angler’s deepest love for this land.
“The world beneath the water runs deeper than the one on land.”
Some fish are caught to prove they exist;
Some truths are brought to light so they will never sink again.
