Deadly Catch

September 16, 2013
Lackluster development wastes a promising setting in the first thriller from Helms, author of the military memoir The Proud Bastards. A tough 24-year Marine veteran, currently unemployed, Mac McClellan has stopped in the Florida panhandle to do some fishing. Unfortunately, hooking the rotting body of a murdered teenaged heiress, Madison “Maddie” Lynn Harper, lands him in a web of family intrigue and big-time marijuana smuggling. Mac warily accepts an offer from Sheriff Bo Pickron, Maddie’s uncle, to become an undercover investigator, further entangling himself in the case. Helms has a gift for local color and action sequences, as shown in Mac’s trek into a snake-infested state park to locate a pot plantation, but the complicated plot gets bogged down in cumbersome exposition. The novel is intended to be the first in a series; hopefully Mac will either become more nimble or stay retired. Agent: Fred Tribuzzo, Rudy Agency.

Starred review from November 1, 2013

Looking for purpose in his life, the newly retired and divorced Mac McClellan goes on a fishing vacation in the Florida Panhandle. Wouldn't you know it, he snags a corpse. A few days later, someone plants a bag of marijuana on his boat. Surprised to be considered a suspect, Mac weighs his options and figures he'd better protect his interests and find out who killed young Maddie Harper and her fiance, Brett Barfield (his body is found later). Neither the local sheriff nor the city police chief strike Mac as trustworthy, but Kate Bell, a local businesswoman, might fit the bill. VERDICT This debut from a Vietnam War memoirist (The Proud Bastards) will resonate with retired military, boomers, and all Florida crime fiction fans. Although the plotline is perhaps too familiar, Helms's love of his novel's setting, and his engaging first-person narrative and internal musings suggest a winning new series is under way.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2013
Meet Mac McClellan, retired lifer fond of beer, barbeque, and trout fishing and trying for some peaceable angling in the Florida panhandle. Then he hooks a corpse. Macand the readerare pulled into a complex but recognizable plot: there's a fat sheriff, a wellborn lady slurping martinis at breakfast, an oily politician, and a clutch of smiling people who are not what they seem. Readers fond of the hard-boiled detective form are not after plot, which only takes about six pages to finally explain, but rather atmosphere and a way of absorbing the world. Read this tale and soak up single malt, inhale Mac's grilled potatoes and roasted onions, learn how to make marijuana brownies (first heat the canola oil . . .), and join Mac in a really fine set piece toward the end. In fins and mask and carrying a camera, he goes under the dark water to document the villainy at dock's end. It's a scene reminiscent of Fleming, and it's the Mac we want to see if we meet again: a man of action, working alone.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)