The Conch Killers [Paperback]

Chip Giles (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 3, 2010

Elizabeth Forbish tries to lead a normal life as a junior at Georgetown University majoring in economics. However, life is anything but normal when you're the daughter of Bradford Wallington Forbish IV, CEO and majority stockholder of Forboco Petrochemical Incorporated. The family fortune is substantial, and he's one of the richest men in Virginia.

Life gets really interesting when Elizabeth is kidnapped by mysterious terrorists while she's being escorted by her bodyguard Johnny. Shady government agents work covertly to recover Elizabeth and deal out some frontier justice to the perpetrators. Tad Hunter and Ramon Garcia, owners of Conch Island Yacht Service in Florida, join in the fray.

Armed with sailboats, guns, and a drunken client, Tad and Ramon-old Army buddies and all-around good guys-pursue the dangerous kidnappers through the Florida islands, over to Bimini, and back. Shootouts, treachery, and outlandish characters are all standard fare in the tropical madness called the Florida Keys. But nothing is as it seems, and crazy things happen in paradise in this uproarious romp through this steamy locale.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Chip Giles served a tour of duty as an Army engineer in Iraq. He and his wife, both avid sailors, are educators and live in Georgia. They spend as much time as possible in the Florida Keys. Visit Giles online at www.chipgiles.com. This is his debut novel.

Product Details

• Paperback: 216 pages
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing (February 3, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1426925638
• ISBN-13: 978-1426925634
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,933,037 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was born in Albany, Georgia and grew up a child of the south. We moved around a lot. I spent a few elementary and middle school years in Apopka, Florida. We lived in an area that was surrounded by hundreds of acres of woods and thousands of acres of orange groves. It was, to an eleven-year-old boy, like living in the Florida wilderness.

I remember being woken up one night by a panther that was screaming under my window at our dogs. Pretty cool if you are an adventurous boy. I raised gopher tortoises in a homemade turtle farm. At the height of my gopher ranching days, I probably had a dozen who shared the pen. I hand fed them tomato slices until my mother started inquiring where the tomatoes were going. My days of wandering the woods and groves of Central Florida left an indelible impression on me. It also bolstered the strong sense of independence that I developed.

I spent most summers with my grandparents in Panama City, Florida. They lived one block from the St. Andrews docks. I would leave the house after breakfast and return for supper in the evening. I roamed the docks, fished and crabbed all day. Some of my fondest memories of my youth go back to the day when Capt. Davis' Queen Fleet of fishing boats were full of tourists and returned with all those exotic fish hung up on display. You can be sure I was there, a knotheaded kid smiling and telling the sunburned tourists "Wow! Those are great fish!" As often as not, if they only had a few, they would give them to me. Off I would go...to sell them at the fish market.

The smell of the tar was thick around these docks. The owners of the shrimp boats would treat their nets in giant vats of tar. The shrimpers and commercial fishermen were a scary lot to me and I always gave them wide berth.

I remember wading around and catching enough crabs to fill a wash bucket eight inches deep in the little blue-legged buggers. They, like the fish, ended up at the fish market. I was a regular at the fish market, pocketing what to me seemed like a small fortune.

The St. Andrews docks of my youth are long gone, replaced by a renovated marina with a resort-like feel and the smell of BMWs in the air. Another piece of old Florida gone.

Later in life, I would take a production job for a hook and bullet magazine. I was the guy who laid out the magazine. I asked the publisher if I could write some articles. He promptly said "No way" and banished me back to the production room. I left the magazine and went on to do some freelance writing for several magazines including Latitudes and Attitudes, Georgia Outdoor News and Outdoor Adventures.

My wife and I accidently developed a love for sailing. We made four trips to the Bahamas on our boat. I was commodore of this ragtag band of sailing miscreants, the Conch Cruisers. It is a collection of some of the finest people I know and I am proud to call them friends.

I started reading books by Florida authors. Those that I most enjoy include Carl Hiaasen, Tim Dorsey, John D. MacDonald, Lawrence Shames, Elmore Leonard, James W. Hall and Randy Wayne White. I knew almost immediately where my writing interests were. The love of a gonzo style of writing coupled with my experiences growing up in Florida produced this first book, The Conch Killers.

My travels have taken me far and wide. From the jungles of South America to the forests of Europe, to the arid lands of the Middle East and across the Gulf Stream, I developed into an independent soul. My wonderful wife, Kelly, and I spend as much time in Key West as our careers in education allow. It is our second home, no doubt. I hope you enjoy my book as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The book had me at THWACK!, March 24, 2010

By 

Bill Glidden (Tampa & Atlanta) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Conch Killers (Paperback)

Being from Florida, my family thought I'd enjoy a book set in our home state. We found this book by accident, when we went to a bookstore where the author was having a book signing. From the opening paragraphs (where you'll find out what I meant in the title of my review!) you'll be caught like a marlin on a gaff hook! This book has all the ingredients to keep you captivated and turning the pages as fast as your eyes can scan them: Beaches, sunshine, kidnapping, murder, beer, tequila, and women of questionable morals!

If you're into sailing, you'll love the detailed descriptions of the boats in this book. The author's bio indicates that he's an avid sailor, and this shows in how he writes about the various sailing craft throughout the book. After finishing the book, I was just about ready to go buy a sailboat and take off for Bimini by way of Key West! Unfortunately, reality set in and I didn't, so I'm going to have to live vicariously through this book and any sequels that might be forthcoming.

I hope that Chip doesn't take too long to write a sequel. I loved the interaction between the main protagonists, and would love to read a lot more. I don't know if there will be 15+ sequels, but reading this book I kind of got the feeling that Chip could have another Stephanie Plum type series here. All you'd need would be colorful characters, crazy scenarios, humor mixed with intrigue, and a wonderful writing style. This book has all that in spades!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good first novel in the footsteps of Hiaasen and Dorsey..., March 4, 2010

By 

Thomas Duff "Duffbert" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Conch Killers (Paperback)

As I get further behind in my reading, I find myself saying "no" to more book offers than I used to. It takes a bit more to break through my "I'd like to, but..." now. But I'm a sucker for a good Florida crime genre novel, especially if it has a touch of Dorsey or Hiaasen in it. When Chip Giles mentioned those two names in his email to offer me The Conch Killers, I had to relent and say yes to a copy. And it was worth the read... Tad Hunter and Ramon Garcia are two humorous additions to the wacky characters that make up the Florida literary landscape, and Giles could turn out to be a writer that I enjoy reading on a regular basis.

In Conch Killers, Hunter and Garcia are two ex-military drifters who live for sailing. They've gotten out of "the life", which means they are no longer doing jobs for shadowy characters that skirt the boundaries of the law. But they are drawn back when they are offered a large payout for a "simple" job... deliver a package in exchange for a kidnap victim, and bring the victim back to her family. But of course, nothing is simple in the Florida Keys, and the job turns into a full-fledged mission with terrorists, guns, and dead bodies. Along the way, there are luxury sailboats, obnoxious owners, people who aren't who they seem to be, and enough craziness to keep everyone confused and amused...

Giles has done a good job for a first novel. Hunter and Garcia are a good character mix, with Hunter playing the semi-rational partner to Garcia's off-the-wall (and sometimes deadly) antics. Given the type of characters they are, the dialog works well. It's not how you'd talk or carry on every day yourself, but it fits the personalities. The only major knock I have on the book is a situation that many self-published authors fall into... the lack of a solid editor to clean up the book. It wasn't so much the story that needed help as the grammar and word usage. I expect most books to have an incorrect word or two, such as their vs. there or bear vs. bare. But The Conch Killers has far too many. When I encountered the first one, I just let it go. The second one about ten pages later gave me pause. But when it got to be one every five pages or so, it really started to bug me. Most of these could have been caught with a single reading by a relatively careful reader. It's too bad, as it otherwise mars what would be a really good first novel.

Giles is in the process of writing his next novel, and I would look forward to reading it. The Conch Killers was a nice diversion to the Florida Keys, and I hope Giles continues to flesh out Hunter and Garcia, and add to their list of adventures.

Disclosure:
Obtained From: Author
Payment: Free

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A multitalented author writes a suspenseful page-turner!, February 24, 2010

By 

Robin Cole - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Conch Killers (Paperback)

I was captivated from the beginning. The author draws you into the story line from the start! Chip Giles keeps you wondering....a thriller! I enjoyed the mixture of suspense and romance!