FOUR DAYS TO VERACRUZ

Second military thriller by West (Sharkman Six, 2001).

West, himself a Marine captain and commodities trader for Goldman, Sachs, has taken a leave of absence to return to active Marine infantry forces. He has also raced in six ECO Challenges and reached 28,000 feet on the north face of Everest. So it’s no stretch when his hero Darren Phillips follows his bride-to-be, Kate North, on an ECO Challenge endurance team in New Zealand, quickly marries her, and honeymoons on a kayak trip into the wilder parts of Mexico. A Marine major, Darren is military aide to the president (he carries the nuclear suitcase), while Kate is the world’s foremost female endurance champion, small-busted and sheathed in muscle. She’s founded an adventure academy for girls called You Go Girl! Now, who wouldn’t want to read about these two, thrust into the laps of murderous druglords and pursued on foot across the Sierra Madre by Mexican federales and the CIA—no rest, no sleep, and four grueling days to Vera Cruz? Meanwhile, hundreds of Mexicans have been murdered by a serial killer—and how will the Monster Butcher tie in with the honeymooners’ endurance race against their own would-be murderers? Other players include Suzanne Richards, deputy director of the CIA’s Crime and Narcotics Center, and third-generation Marine Gavin Kelly of Sharkman Six.

West remains a potent thriller writer. Marines, suit up!