FATAL HARBOR

Lewis Cole is determined to get the anti-nuclear activist who put his best friend in a coma. And not just to send him to prison.

Lewis was on the scene at the Falconer nuclear plant when a demonstration run amok claimed three and a half lives. The half was that of Diane Woods, of the Tyler Police Department, whom Curt Chesak, leader of the Nuclear Freedom Front, beat with an iron pipe. Unfortunately, the reclusive Chesak’s guilt is a lot clearer than his whereabouts. Professor Heywood Knowlton, his friend and mentor at Boston University, sneers that he wouldn’t tell Lewis where Chesak was even if he knew. Lawrence Todd Thomas, the retired D.C. analyst whose son was another Falconer casualty, is eager to help, but he can’t locate Chesak either. So Lewis is left with no one but his buddy Felix Tinios for company as he beats the bushes looking for Chesak. But as an ex–Defense Department intelligence analyst, he’s not only ruthless about meting out rough justice, but resourceful in finding his prey. When he gets warned off the case by his sometime-girlfriend, Annie Wynn, and by Detective Pete Renzi of the New Hampshire State Police, Lewis thinks twice, but both thoughts are bloody. Unlike the Corleone family, Lewis doesn’t think it’s just business; it’s definitely personal.

It’s also definitely incomplete. This sequel probably should have been published as Part 2 of Deadly Cove (2011), which presented the Falconer demonstration up close and personal. Unless you're still as haunted as Lewis is by the events of Part 1, you may think you’re walking into the less-interesting half of a single tale.