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Summary
Summary
An electrifying debut thriller that pits a family against the merciless elements and a vengeful madman on the high seas.Doctors without a country, Michael and Sarah Stone bring aid to those in need in the equatorial Pacific. Tending to a stricken islander while his wife and young daughter, Ronnie, sail off to answer another distress call, Michael looks on helplessly as the yacht carrying his loved ones is hoisted aboard a giant natural gas tanker which then steams away into the distance. And now Michael must brave the savage ocean and vicious men as well, as he embarks upon an incredible odyssey to rescue his kidnapped family -- while Sarah and Ronnie must use their wits to survive the mad whims of a twisted millionaire who is plotting a truly horrific act of destructive revenge.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Cover blurbs link this debut thriller to the recent nonfiction bestsellers Into Thin Air and The Perfect Storm, but its real ancestors are the expertly crafted nautical adventures of Hammond Innes. Like Innes, professional seaman Garrison creates characters who are unique and then puts them into situations full of believable peril. Do-gooder physicians Sarah and Michael Stone and their 10-year-old daughter, Ronnie, seem to have an ideal life: they sail the rugged waters of the Pacific in their hospital ship, "an elderly, sun-bleached 38-foot Nautor Swan," bringing medicine to islands off the trade routes. One day, just as they are about to put in at a remote atoll, a giant ship carrying liquefied nitrogen gas radios an SOS: its captain has been seriously injured in a fall. The doctors split up. Sarah drops Michael off and heads for the nearby carrierwhich promptly scoops up the sailboat and steams away while Michael watches, helpless, from shore. After this smashing start, Garrison piles on even more empathy, action and suspense. On board the carrier, a gnarled, fascinating old China hand is suffering from botched surgery to remove a bullet. While Sarah works to keep him alive, his very nasty bodyguard uses violence to keep the crewand Sarah and Ronniefrom finding out where the valuable, dangerous cargo is headed. Meanwhile, Michael repairs an islander's canoe and sails for Palau, where a friendly local politician discovers that Dr. Stone has a very good reason for not calling in the U.S. Navy to help him recover his wife, daughter and sailboat. Instead, Michael recruits a team of Chinese gangsters (and one stranded female American ex-cop) to go after the kidnappers in a fast-forward showdown that takes him to Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tokyo. Garrison writes about these exotic people and places with immense vigor; it's no wonder that Disney has optioned the book for a cool million. Major ad/promo. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
A highly accomplished debut avenger, enlivened with conflicted characters and a barnacle-encrusted view of the world. First-novelist Garrison here takes the Elmore Leonard formularesourceful good folks up against a pair of bad guys, one physically threatening, the other criminally ingeniousto a Pacific island setting. The Stone familyAmerican Michael, his South African wife Sarah, and their precocious ten-year-old daughter Ronniesail among the Pacific's forgotten islands, swapping their medical expertise for fuel and supplies. After putting Michael ashore on a tiny atoll to help a dying Micronesian islander, Sarah and Ronnie answer a distress call from a large tanker and find themselves hauled aboard. As the tanker steams away with them, Michael chases in the islander's battered outriggerand suffers every variety of high-seas bad luck imaginable (he loses his compass; the boom snaps back and knocks him out cold, and so on). At the same time, Sarah is forced by the menacing Moss to tend the gunshot wounds of 78-year-old ``Mr. Jack'' Powell. Mr. Jack, who has more than a grudge against Japan, plans to take his tanker, filled with highly combustible, supercooled liquid natural gas, into Tokyo Bay, where he'll blow everything sky- high. He's betting that the catastrophe will cripple the nation's economy. But first he must contend with Michael, who not only manages to track the tanker but wins back both boat and wifeonly to have the wily Mr. Jack handcuff himself to Ronnie as security. Meanwhile, Garrison's take on boat-bum life is grim and fascinating: Sudden death lurks behind spectacular scenery, and every psyche is burdened with an unresolved conflict. Thus, Michael and Sarah go once more into the breech (and the bilge) to save their daughter, and millions of Japanese, from becoming freeze-dried flambé. Nautical lore, colorful island types, dramatic plotting, and blessedly restrained prose. (Film rights to David Hoberman/Disney)
Booklist Review
What this kidnapping story lacks in depth, it compensates for in breadth: it rambles over the western Pacific, beginning in Marshall Island atolls, making landfalls at Hong Kong and Shanghai, and ending with explosions in Tokyo. The distances are covered by several types of craft, and the navigational means of traversing them are abundantly detailed--fascinating information to some thriller buffs but excruciating digressions to most other readers. Although there is much description of reefed sails and sextants, there is little convincing character development, for the traits of Garrison's personages remain immutable over the course of the story. The bad guys ply the seas in a huge natural-gas carrier, and at an atoll, they meet up with the good guys--Michael Stone, wife Sarah, and daughter Ronnie. The parents are doctors who make atoll-calls in their sailboat. The bad guys, needing medical help for their gun-shot captain, snatch Sarah, Ronnie, and the sailboat. This strands Stone on a speck of sand: his odyssey to save his family is the story line. Once the captain recovers, he decides to keep his victims to prevent exposure of his plans for the ship. Simple seafaring fare, imitative of Clive Cussler's material. Watch for popular demand if the Disney folks exercise their option to turn Garrison's first novel into a movie: it swells with enough swashbuckling scenes (including the classic rope-swinging capture) to justify celluloid. --Gilbert Taylor
Library Journal Review
The western Pacific Ocean provides the setting for this author's first novel. Seagoing physicians Michael and Sarah Stone sail the vastness of the Pacific with their daughter, Ronnie, providing medical care to all who cross their paths. This idyllic existence is rudely shattered when Sarah and Ronnie answer a distress call from a commercial liquid natural gas carrier sailing outside normal sea lanes and are kidnapped, leaving Michael stranded on an island with no food, water, or means of rescuing his family. His struggle to save them and prevent the terrorist destruction of a major Asian city form the bulk of the novel. Readers looking for sea fiction similar to that of Patrick O'Brian and William P. Mack should look elsewhere; this novel is more in the vein of an action adventure by Clive Cussler or Stephen Coonts. Garrison has obviously reefed many a sail, as his technical detail is excellent, and the geography bespeaks a familiarity with places mentioned. A good read for public library "action" enthusiasts. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 12/97.]Harold N. Boyer, Florence Cty. Lib., SC (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.