A Deadly Exchange - Softcover

Stafford, Sheryl Jane

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0595156770 ISBN 13: 9780595156771

Publisher: Writers Showcase Pr, 2000

Former POW Matthew Spencer thinks his days of confinement and torture are over at the end of the Vietnam war. Not so. Years later, when he and his wife, Alexandra, embark on a leisurely cruise on their sailboat, they are caught up in another battle, one that involves illegal drugs. As their sloop sails toward the remote Bahamian Cays, the Spencers are unaware of the deadly white powder concealed inside their yacht’s hanging wet locker.

Spencer is forty-eight, tired, a reluctant hero. Alex is thirty-five, na?ve, an unlikely heroine. They aren’t looking for trouble, but then again, they don’t have to. They’re carrying it with them.

A chain of events leaves Matt desperate and alone, while Alex, weak and in shock, is delivered to Raoul, the head of a Columbian drug cartel.

U.S. drug agents on a surveillance mission are drawn into the conflict. They agree to deliver Matt to Morgan Cay, Raoul’s private Island.

Raoul sounds the alarm when he discovers that Alex has bolted. Alex finds Matt savagely beaten and unable to move. The agents, waiting just offshore, must leave at dawn. The clock is ticking for Matt, for Alex, and for the agents.

Vicious drug dealers test a middle-class American marriage in this...intriguing thriller. The action picks up when the bad guys arrive...she does punctuate the narrative with rapid action sequences and colorful supporting characters. Stafford particularly delights in scruffy male duos, like the entry-level drug dealer Tyrone and his perpetually stoned sidekick Z, whose bickering recalls the deadpan comic riffs of an Elmore Leonard novel.

-Kirkus Discoveries

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From the Author:

Information provided by my husband, Commander Hugh Stafford, who was a POW in Hanoi for six years, greatly contributed to the creation of one of the lead characters in A Deadly Exchange. Our many trips on our sailboat, which we navigated from the Florida Panhandle to the Bahamas, provided the first-hand knowledge I needed to set the stage for the nightmare. The details about cocaine, bone fishing, island flora and fauna, guns, and sailing have been carefully researched. A Deadly Exchange is steeped in fact, which makes the story all the more terrifying.

About the Author:

Sheryl Stafford has published work in Emerald Coast Review, Volumes V, VI, VII; awarded first place, 1994 WFLF Short Story Contest. Her short story was selected as one of top 100 in mainstream/genre category in 1995 Writer’s Digest National Writing Competition; received Honorable Mention, 1999 South Florida National Writer’s Association Short Fiction Contest.

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