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This is a good read that will appeal to sailors as there’s quite a lot of detail around boats and sailing - one of the main characters has the misfortune to be caught out not once, but twice by hurricanes, and those sections are tightly and very tensely written - although why he wasn’t as sick as a dog is beyond me! It’s not all sailing though, so don’t let that put you off - the sea and boats are key elements, but there’s plenty of land based shenanigans as well.
The author clearly knows his Caribbean islands, and maybe shows that off a tad at the start, but the story soon takes over. There are two principal characters - Elliot, an English drifter, and Andrew, a US marine working on a big flashy yacht. The chapters sort of alternate between them, although there are some stretches where one or other of them hogs the story for a few chapters. They’re ably supported by some local police officers, a very fine Dutch marine and various other locals and boat crew. There are baddies aplenty, much politicking, drug running, gun running, some casual violence, some of it pretty nasty, and a teensy hint of romance with no sex. So a lot of characters, and it took me a while to remember who was who, but it all settles and those you need to remember get fixed in the brain. The two main characters run separately for a long time, and I was beginning to wonder if they’d ever meet, but the storyline begins to make the connections clear, and they do - finally.
I loved Elliot’s post-hurricane brief I-can-rule-the-world euphoria that had him taking on the world and winning, just for a bit, and the Dutch marines are very fine - “Four tall muscular and bronzed men sitting in the boat, their hair glistening like gold in the rays of the sun, all in army fatigues and dark shades, weapons in racks and the whole boat painted in black and green camouflage.” They’re big, competent, powerful…
There’s a glossary at the back which would have been useful if I’d known it was there - now you do!
Not so very cheap for an e-book, but a long, detailed, well written book that holds the interest and engages the brain, so worth its pennies.
This is a good read that will appeal to sailors as there’s quite a lot of detail around boats and sailing - one of the main characters has the misfortune to be caught out not once, but twice by hurricanes, and those sections are tightly and very tensely written - although why he wasn’t as sick as a dog is beyond me! It’s not all sailing though, so don’t let that put you off - the sea and boats are key elements, but there’s plenty of land based shenanigans as well.
The author clearly knows his Caribbean islands, and maybe shows that off a tad at the start, but the story soon takes over. There are two principal characters - Elliot, an English drifter, and Andrew, a US marine working on a big flashy yacht. The chapters sort of alternate between them, although there are some stretches where one or other of them hogs the story for a few chapters. They’re ably supported by some local police officers, a very fine Dutch marine and various other locals and boat crew. There are baddies aplenty, much politicking, drug running, gun running, some casual violence, some of it pretty nasty, and a teensy hint of romance with no sex. So a lot of characters, and it took me a while to remember who was who, but it all settles and those you need to remember get fixed in the brain. The two main characters run separately for a long time, and I was beginning to wonder if they’d ever meet, but the storyline begins to make the connections clear, and they do - finally.
I loved Elliot’s post-hurricane brief I-can-rule-the-world euphoria that had him taking on the world and winning, just for a bit, and the Dutch marines are very fine - “Four tall muscular and bronzed men sitting in the boat, their hair glistening like gold in the rays of the sun, all in army fatigues and dark shades, weapons in racks and the whole boat painted in black and green camouflage.” They’re big, competent, powerful…
There’s a glossary at the back which would have been useful if I’d known it was there - now you do!
Not so very cheap for an e-book, but a long, detailed, well written book that holds the interest and engages the brain, so worth its pennies.
