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Island Tempest [Hardcover]

Michael Mewshaw (Author)


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Hardcover, October 7, 2004 --  

Book Description

October 7, 2004
Frank Pitchard has recently been leading a quiet, rather depressed existence-even though he lives on Eden, an exclusive resort island community off the coast of Florida. Forced into retirement after his company was taken over and "reorganized," he spends his days sitting outside, reading The Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook, thinking about his loving deceased wife, and dreaming up ways to get back at the corporate raiders. One bright spot is the lithe and beautiful Ariel, his wife's nurse, who's been hanging around since her death. Another is Randi, an Eden trophy wife currently between husbands. She gives Frank a set of binoculars and introduces him to bird-watching. However, Frank uses the binoculars to spy on Cal Barlow, his crippled next-door neighbor, and one day sees him sitting in his wheelchair, cradling a blue-steel pistol.

The two men strike up a friendship soon afterward, when Cal happens upon Frank pushing a golf cart into the lake. An odd partnership develops. What Frank doesn't know is that Cal is an ex-mobster in witness protection-and that he's sleeping with Randi right under Frank's nose. And Cal doesn't seem to realize that there's an assassin on his tail and that the Feds aren't far behind.

In this wicked and sharply drawn tale of the shady places between good and evil, Michael Mewshaw once again proves himself to be a storyteller of boundless talent.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Mewshaw (Shelter from the Storm,etc.) carves out a piece of Florida retirement turf for this leisurely thriller, in which a crippled ex-con and his widower neighbor join forces to become unlikely partners in crime. "Not your usual SMOPs, the Slow-Moving Old People, the shrunken, sun-crusted peanuts who plugged the arteries of the rest of Florida," Mewshaw writes about the residents of Eden, the upscale island where his two damaged protagonists live. Frank Pritchard, a sad and bitter former executive who helped create Eden but was forced out of the company while his wife was dying, reads The Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook for pleasure. In the house next door, Cal Barlow—a mysterious paraplegic protected by a federal witness program—copes with his troubles in more physical ways. Ariel, a South African physical therapist, and Randi, a "trophy wife currently between husbands," round off the quartet, as Frank and Cal become friends and allies. Frank is determined to get revenge on his former colleagues, and Cal has plenty of advice to give. In the end, however, it's Cal's past that catches up with the duo. Mewshaw has an uncanny ear for dialogue and razor-sharp descriptive powers, but too little happens in this sun-baked crime caper.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Frank Pritchard is a deposed CEO and recent widower. He spends his day in the ironically named--for him--Eden island resort off the Florida coast, watching the financial news channel report on his stock holdings. He ignores the advances of an avaricious neighbor, Randi, while secretly desiring the younger and more idealistic Ariel, his late wife's physiotherapist. Frank's malaise subsides marginally when his paraplegic next-door neighbor piques his interest. Cal Barlow has a gun, a past, a wheelchair, and an attitude, and he inspires Frank to begin a vandalism campaign against the corporate raiders who pushed him out of his CEO chair. Frank's acts, however, inadvertently close the gap between Cal's dangerous past and his comfortable present. Mewshaw is a writer of uncommon subtlety. Each of his four key characters undergoes a gradual metamorphosis entirely consistent with his or her circumstances. None of us can hide from our past, but as the ex-CEO, the career criminal, the earth mother, and the fortune-hunting trophy wife all illustrate, neither must we be defined by it. Thought-provoking fiction. Wes Lukowsky
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 304 pages
  • Publisher: Putnam Adult (October 7, 2004)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0399152210
  • ISBN-13: 978-0399152214
  • Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,791,525 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
It was evening on the island of Eden, that hour when the wind diminishes and noise carries for miles. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Bob Emery, Breakfast Club, Frank Pritchard, Cal Barlow, Bare Assets, South Africa, Breathe Right, Tahiti Townhouses, Witness Protection Program, Animal Planet, Gumbo-Limbo Lane, Lean Cuisine, New Jersey, Randi Dickson, Assisted Living, Thank God, Tom Hanks, Acapulco Villas, Cape Town, Jungle Fever, Land Rover, The Sopranos, Tripod Bob, While Ariel
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