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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An adrenalin pumper, March 22, 2006
Reviewed by Rebecka Vigus for Reader Views (3/06)
Scott Macklen goes for a day cruise with friends to christen a new boat, when they discover a floating raft. The raft contains a shipment of coke. They attach the raft to their boat and contact the Coast Guard. That's when the excitement begins.
Macklen's friends the Dentons and their children are massacred in their own home. Then the Larsons, also on the boat that day, are killed in the same way. At the funeral for the Dentons the Song Birds (a group of Jamaicans who call themselves a Posse) arrive with their MAC-10s and start shooting. This time it's Macklen's friend, Tony Haggen, who is shot.
While Tony is recovering, Macklen takes on Harry Boggs the drug lord whose coke they recovered. With the assistance of Hap Skyler, a cop friend of Tony's, Wendy Katlan of Katlan Air, and his fellow veteran, Lencho, Macklen wages all out war.
He hopes to wage his war without taking lives. A former special forces operative in the Viet Nam War, he takes his training and puts it to work to take down Boggs. First he goes after his ships, hoping the cost of repairs will cause Boggs to act stupidly. When that doesn't work, he goes after his fleet of planes. Meanwhile, Boggs has put a price on Macklen's head, one hundred thousand dollars dead or alive. Macklen is forced to use alternate identities, hoping Boggs thinks the Columbians are trying to take over.
If this book does not get your adrenalin pumping, I don't know what will. It is well written and face paced. The action only takes temporary breaks. Does good win over evil in this tale? You will want to read it to find out.
Bob McElwain introduces the action in the first couple of pages and keeps it going until the very end. He even keeps a surprise or two for the end. "Lethal Wind" is a good read for anyone looking for action and adventure.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Lethat Wind - "No good deed goes unpunished", March 6, 2008
Bob McElwain's Lethal Wind begins by taking the cliché, "no good deed goes unpunished" to the extreme. A pleasant day cruise on a family boat, Denty's Dream, in the Marina Del Rey quickly becomes an unexpected disaster for the families of the Dentons, the Larsons, and their friends, local detective Tony Haggen, his girlfriend Gail, and Scott Macklen, who served in Vietnam. A curious look at a sea green tarp floating twenty miles out from shore turns out to be a cargo-filled raft of coke. Despite Scott and Tony's protests to let the Coast Guard handle it, Denty is determined to haul the raft in and get his fifteen minutes of hero fame back on shore.
Denty notifies the Coast Guard of the situation and the boat gets a helicopter and a Coast Guard cutter to escort it back to shore; enough attention to convince a pursuing ship to beg off. Just the same Tony calls in a favor from a fellow detective Hap Skylar who understands the desire to remain anonymous, so while reporters interview Denty at the dock, Tony, Gail and Scott take a less crowded route back to their vehicles. Guessing that the coke the Coast Guard just took possession of was worth about 10 million, the detective and ex-Vietnam Vet know there will be repercussions.
By early the next morning, it started, first the Dentons, parents and the kids were massacred, then the Larsons and their police protection were gunned down by Miami Song Birds sporting MAC 10s. Tony ferrets Gail out of town under police protection, only to find himself a target along with innocent mourners at the Dentons funeral. That left Scott alone to go on the offensive. Everyone knew the drug lord was a crazy, paranoid man named Boggs, but no one could link him to anything. It was time for Scott to pull out his secret stash of cash and enlist the assistance of those who operated in an underworld where petty rules and laws were not a hindrance.
First he needed a team: Lencho Cabral could get whatever he needed. Geoffrey Robarris, the pompous ex-CIA guy had the ability to get information. Hap Skylar was the detective who had to follow the rule book, but Scott needed him to pick up the bad guys at the end. Then there was the beautiful woman, Wendy, the pilot with her own personal plane. The plan was simple: Convince a paranoid Boggs that the Columbians were after him and wait for him to make a mistake. All Scott had to do was do some major damage to Boggs property in the Americas, cut of his supply of cash, and foul up the deliver of the next shipment of coke. Of course a third party kept getting in the way. His odds weren't good considering , Hap, Lencho, and Robarris were all betting against him.
If you're a reader who enjoys action with a plausible mystery and a hero with the odds stacked against him, this is your book. Scott doesn't mention too much about exactly what he did in Nam, where he got his stash, or why he always keeps a gun close, but the reader can infer from his improvised plans, when plan A does work, that special forces training may be in his background. There's a little mystery about Scott that I hope Mc. McElwain will allow us to explore more in another novel soon.
© Katherine Maria Scott, Scott Writing & Communication Design
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