STOP AT NOTHING

4 stars out of 5

It appears this is the first book in a new series, and after reading this one, there's no question I'm up for more. The plot - and even the star character, former hot-shot veteran turned Bahamas dive boat captain Michael Gannon - are reminiscent of those from other authors, but this one is different, intriguing and action-packed enough to suit me just fine.

Gannon is out on his boat when he sees a Gulfstream jet crash; rushing as fast as his boat will take him, he dives to the wreckage to find six dead bodies plus a boatload of money and diamonds. Ethics be damned, Gannon sees an opportunity to swipe the loot, stashing it where no one else could possibly find it and looks forward to a rest-of-life not worrying about where his next meal will come from.

Meanwhile, U.S. Navy Lt. Ruby Everett of Naval Safety is with her sister, who's due to give birth any second. Looking forward to aunthood, Ruby is less than thrilled when she gets a call sending her to the Bahamas to check out the airplane incident. But when she gets there, she's told by high-up muckity-mucks to back off, even though the disaster falls clearly within her department's purview. As she mulls over the abrupt dismissal, an islander shows her a video he'd taken under water that clearly shows something isn't quite right. It gets worse when the official announcement of the crash is made public - with details that totally contradict what really happened as shown in that video. Whoa, Everett thinks, but there's not much she can do about it.

Gannon, meanwhile, also learns of the contradictions and starts to wonder how things really went down (so to speak). But on the other side, the bad guys - the ones who want to quash the real story because they're in the middle of preventing a huge international incident that would discredit them - realize the loot has been taken from the plane and will stop at nothing to find out who's got it and get it back.

From there, the chases get really complicated, but suffice it to say Gannon, Everett and several of their cohorts find themselves on a run for their lives as they try to find out what's really going on. The efforts also force Gannon out of retirement and put his not-so-rusty shoot 'em up skills to good use (which no doubt will be needed in future books). All in all, well worth reading; I thank the publisher, via NetGalley, for allowing me to read a pre-publication copy.

Stop at Nothing by Michael Ledwidge (Hanover Square Press, March 2020); 416 pp.