Jack Merchant
Created by Bill Eidson

Ahoy, ye maties. Another sea-farin' eye.

JACK MERCHANT is an ex-DEA agent who'd just like to be left alone. If he had his druthers, the entire world would just get off his case, and let him enjoy his premature retirement aboard his sloop the Lila, playing around with his new digital camera, but it doesn't quite work out that way. In The Repo (2003), the Charleston, Massachusetts docks where the Lila is berthed are teeming with the dealers and punks he used to put away, and then an old friend, Sarah Ballard, shows up with the papers on his boat.

But she wants to cut a deal -- if Jack will help her track down a couple of high-rent skippers, he can keep his boat.

I just skimmed this one, but there seems to be a nice, rough-hewn feel to this promising debut that at times recalls John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee, and not just because of the nautical setting..

Author Bill Edison is the writer of several stand-alone thrillers, including Frames Per Second, The Guardian and The Little Brother. He lives outside of Boston, and is a former New England chapter president of the Mystery Writers of America.

UNDER OATH

• "First rate stuff; lean prose, compelling story, and verve in the telling. don't miss it."
  (Robert B. Parker, on The Guardian)

NOVELS

• The Repo (2003). Buy this book

Preliminary report respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.