Paul rolls into Hope—population 1001—late at nigh on his thirtieth birthday, on the lam from his wife and a surprise party he has known about for weeks. He is trying to escape the big city and get some serious work done on his second novel, but finds the diversions of Hope no less seductive than those he has fled. One of those diversions is the two-hundred-year-old legendary fish, Ol' Mossback. Paul could hardly pass up the chance to land such a fish. He puts aside his work-in-progress in an attempt to discover the mysteries of Hope, with all its quirky characters, and to finally be able to answer the question, "talked with Ol' Mossback lately?"