Deadly Catch: A Mac McClellan Mystery - Softcover

Michael, E. Helms

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1616148675 ISBN 13: 9781616148676

Publisher: Seventh Street Books, 2013

Synopsis

“The first cast of the day turned my dream vacation into a nightmare. . . .” After twenty-four years in the U.S. Marines, recently retired Mac McClellan is happy to be a civilian again. He is enjoying a leisurely fishing vacation in the Florida panhandle when he hooks a badly decomposed body. Then, when a bag of rare marijuana is discovered stashed aboard his rental boat, he realizes someone is setting him up to take the fall for murder and drug smuggling. Mac’s plans for a more laid-back life must be put on hold while he works to clear his name as the number one suspect. Mac launches an investigation with the help of Kate Bell, a feisty saleslady at the local marina with whom he has struck up a promising relationship. Along the way he must butt heads and match wits with local law enforcement officials, shady politicians, and strong-armed thugs from the Eastern Seaboard to sniff out and bring the real smuggler and killer to justice.

About this title

About the Author

E. Michael Helms’s memoir of his Vietnam combat service, The Proud Bastards, has remained in print for two decades. Originally published by Kensington/Zebra in 1990, it was republished in 2004 by Simon & Schuster/Pocket Star, and has sold nearly 50,000 copies (Pocket Star edition). The memoir is also a past hardcover selection of The Military Book Club. Helms is also the author of Of Blood and Brothers, a two-part novel about the Civil War. Helms currently resides with his wife Karen in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in South Carolina.

Reviews

Meet Mac McClellan, retired lifer fond of beer, barbeque, and trout fishing and trying for some peaceable angling in the Florida panhandle. Then he hooks a corpse. Mac—and the reader—are pulled into a complex but recognizable plot: there’s a fat sheriff, a wellborn lady slurping martinis at breakfast, an oily politician, and a clutch of smiling people who are not what they seem. Readers fond of the hard-boiled detective form are not after plot, which only takes about six pages to finally explain, but rather atmosphere and a way of absorbing the world. Read this tale and soak up single malt, inhale Mac’s grilled potatoes and roasted onions, learn how to make marijuana brownies (first heat the canola oil . . .), and join Mac in a really fine set piece toward the end. In fins and mask and carrying a camera, he goes under the dark water to document the villainy at dock’s end. It’s a scene reminiscent of Fleming, and it’s the Mac we want to see if we meet again: a man of action, working alone. --Don Crinklaw

Edition details

• Publisher: Seventh Street Books
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1616148675
• ISBN 13: 9781616148676
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208