The Crow's Nest

This is my first novel by Richard Meredith, and I’m not sure that he has taken on such a genre before this one, but he has written one can’t-put-it-down adventure. One of his reviewers wrote that this story, The Crow’s Nest, was a mixture of Don Winslow and Clive Cussler, and I fully agree with that high praise.

Captain Jonny was driving one of a a fleet of crude submarines from Columbia to northern Baja where he was delivering pure cocaine which was intended for sale in the U.S. The street value of this shipment was about $125 million. It was the second such delivery Jonny was making over the course of a month. But, Jonny had a plan of how to capture the cargo for himself rather than deliver it to La Hermandad – the Brotherhood, who controlled the border territory East of Tijuana. Drug wars had led to various cartels controlling various patches of territory, and there was always a threat of one of the cartels making a move on another. Jonny scuttled the sub and released the contraband in 50 bales of material which were designed to float about 75 feet below the surface while sending to those who were there to collect the material for a specific retailer.

La Hermandad was ruthlessly run by El Cuervo, the Raven, and his enforcer was El Baracuda, or just Cuda. A huge and deadly man who frightened everyone who met him. Meanwhile, there was a tuna fleet which Cuervo had purchased in order to launder his money, but when the sub went missing, Cuervo sent his nearest tuna boat to protect the submerged stash so it wouldn’t end up in the wrong hands before he could collect it. Cuda was on the way to handle all the dirty work that would happen. The assistant to the chief engineer Chase Brenner who lived in San Diego where his wife Maria and t of here children were desperately missing Chase who had been gone for 90 days on a tuna fishing trip. But, the boat was almost full of tuna and the crew was ready to head home when they got the word they would be delayed when the skipper was ordered to protect the sunken cargo. Chase and Maria were the love story part of the novel.

Mr. Meredith has spun a great story with good guys and evil guys. He covered the lives of the tuna crew, the infighting at La Hermandad, and the possibility of being taken over by a rival cartel. The plot development was excellent and he brought this story about with rich characters. This book gets a five-star rating and I can only  hope for more stories from Richard Meredith.