Crackdown

A Dutch sailboat found empty and pocked with bullet boles, a map inside with course charted, a charter captain whose conscience and ill luck lead him on a heading towards mayhem—the destination on the found chart, Murder Cay, a major narcotraficante base and captain Nick Breakspear makes a big mistake: he reports the vessel to police. Trouble begins to simmer for Nick and his charter crew. Then the stew thickens to a porridge with the addition of two drug-addled brat offspring of a US Senator. Ellen Skandinsky Ph.D. is the love interest, a women’s studies prof who checked out of academia to serve as a galley cook on the high seas. Former marine and arms specialist Nick has the hearts for the comely cuisiniere. The feelings are not so secretly requited but all remains under raps until passions are aroused by an armed raid on the charter yacht, the killing of a member of the crew, and the abduction of the brats. Notwithstanding these misfortunes, our man Nick appropriates a Kalashnikov in the scuffle and employs said to Swiss cheese a couple of the bad guys. Now vendetta is in play, and when Ellen is abducted, Nick Breakspear cries “Havoc!” Remediation will involve a raid on Murder Cay, which is infested with mercenaries, machine guns, watchtowers, patrol boats, grenades and mortars—but this is nothing that an M16, a quiver of scorpion machine pistols and a Kalashnikov won’t solve. Character development thin in places but who needs it when the hero is locked and loaded and ready to risk all in the name of love.