Lockestep (Paperback or Softback)

A former British SAS agent turned Toronto bodyguard is hired by the Mounties to accompany a drug dealer to Mexico in this hard-boiled crime thriller.

Professional bodyguard John Locke is in no mood to babysit Greg Amadeo, a drug dealer turncoat who wants to visit his wife in Mexico, collect some cash, and settle debts before testifying in the States, but how can Locke pass up the warm climate, lovely ladies, and a quick buck? Amadeo has a trick up his sleeve that may cause Locke to come back in a body bag if he does not use all the skills he learned in the British army’s SAS elite corps.

With an appreciation for the more civilized aspects of life, Locke finds the fishing village, Zihuatanejo, right up his alley with two of his favorite things, fine women and tasty food, but there are just too many bullets flying around for Locke’s peace of mind . . .

Praise for Lockestep

“Locke is a hero midway between Bond and Spenser: large-hearted and educated, sensitive and physically very fit. . . . The Mexican background is pleasingly vivid and Barnao delivers a thriller.” —Publishers Weekly

Jack Barnao was the pseudonym of Ted Wood, author of the acclaimed Reid Bennett mystery series. He was born in Shoreham, Sussex, England. Throughout his life, he was a flier, a beat cop, a pin-boy, a soda-jerk, a freight porter, and an advertising hotshot. Wood also wrote dozens of short stories, hundreds of magazine articles, including two long-running humor columns, television plays, and one musical comedy. He had fourteen books, thirteen of them novels, published in Canada, the United States, Britain, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, and Japan. As Jack Barnao, he also wrote the John Locke Mysteries: Lockestep, Hammerlocke, and Timelocke.
 
After being widowed, he married his wife, Mary, in 1975. He was the father of three, stepfather to another three, and granddad to a total of nine, counting steps and one step-step. Wood ran Whitby’s Ezra Annes House bed and breakfast in partnership with Mary. He passed away in 2019.