One Bad Thing - Hardcover

Eidson, Bill

3.87

30 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312876467 ISBN 13: 9780312876463

Publisher: Forge, 2000

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McKenna, overcome by guilt over his daughter's death, becomes dangerously involved in diamond smuggling and murder when he hires Tom Cain as his crewman to sail back to Boston from the British Virgin Islands.

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Review:

Rob McKenna and his wife, attempting to rebuild their marriage after the death of their daughter, seek solace in a new life aboard the boat they've bought and sailed to the Caribbean. But the effort fails, and Catherine leaves Rob midway on the voyage, forcing him to take on a crew member to help sail the boat back to Boston. Tom Cain turns out to be more than a capable sailor. He's also a thief and a con man, implicated (at least fictionally) in the biggest unsolved art theft in history--the disappearance of a $300-million-dollar trove of old masters from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

When McKenna realizes the truth about Cain, he's confronted with a Hobson's choice, and the decision he makes between two evils catapults him into a world of hurt, violence, deception, and murder. Can a moral man do an immoral thing and still consider himself a good human being? That's the philosophical question at the heart of this engrossing "what if." Unlike some speculative suspense thrillers based on actual events, this one stands on its own as a lively, well-told tale regardless of the historical circumstances that suggested it. Both Rob and Catherine are empathetic characters whose fate quickly grips the reader. The secondary figures, such as the incestuous brother-sister team who've been double-crossed by Tom Cain and the Vietnam vet who repays his debt to Rob by putting his own life on the line are equally well-drawn. The pacing is swift, careening to an explosive and satisfying conclusion--a page-turning read for armchair sailors with a penchant for true crime stories as well as made-up mysteries. --Jane Adams

About the Author:

Bill Eidson lives in Arlington, Massachusetts.

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