Blackwater Sound
“No one has written more lyrically of the Gulfstream since Ernest Hemingway... a wonderful reading experience...”
—James Lee Burke
“A story that bristles with all the heat and tension of a tropical Florida summer, Blackwater Sound is destined to rank among the greatest suspense thrillers of the new decade.” — Jane Adams
Overview
The Braswell family had everything people would kill for: money, looks, power. But their eldest son, the family’s shining light, died in a bizarre fishing accident. And when he disappeared-hauled into the depths by the giant marlin he had been fighting-he took with him a secret so corrupt that it could destroy the Braswells.
Ten years later, a huge airliner crashes in the steamy shallows off the Florida coast, killing all aboard. Helping pull bodies from the water, Thorn finds himself drawn into a bizarre conspiracy: someone has developed a high tech weapon capable of destroying electrical systems in a powerful flash. The terrorist potential is huge. How are the secretive Braswells and their family-owned company, MicroDyne, involved? And what does it have to do with the family’s obsessive hunt for the great marlin that killed their golden boy?
Praise
“sleek and relentlessly propulsive…” —Dennis Lehane
“No writer working today…more clearly evokes the shadows and loss that hide within the human heart.” — Robert Crais, bestselling author of L.A. Requiem and Demolition Angel
“If you don’t know the fine suspense novels of James W. Hall, this will get you off to a rousing start.” — Scott Turow, bestselling author of Presumed Innocent and The Burden of Proof
“With beautiful prose and a heavily muscled story, it moves with the grandeur and unpredictability of a [killer] marlin.” — Michael Connelly, New York Times bestselling author of A Darkness More Than Night and Angels Flight
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Researching Blackwater Sound in Cabo and Abaco was a hell of a lot more fun than researching Gone Wild in the jungles of Borneo .
James on Writing Blackwater Sound
Researching big-time marlin fishing for Blackwater Sound was certainly a pleasure. First I went to Cabo San Lucas in Mexico to attend a large marlin tournament and to get the feel for the kind of people involved in the sport. During that trip I met one of the crew members of a very successful marlin fishing team. Turns out he was a fan of my books, and he invited me to another tournament in Marsh Harbor on Abaco. On that trip I went out for one of the tournament fishing days aboard their marlin yacht and observed the workings of a very different type of fishing than I’d ever witnessed before. Very scientific, very professional.
Later as the story began to unfold in my mind, I decided to use a bit of research I’d done a while back on the use of HERF weapons, a high energy radio frequency system that can knock out electrical grids. Through a well-informed military expert I gained a good feel for what this weapon is capable of doing, and though it had the feel of science fiction, I decided to see if I could make it real and use it to play a crucial role in the novel. So those two aspects, high tech weaponry and marlin fishing became fused in Blackwater Sound, and Thorn is dragged into the middle of it all.
I also used Blackwater Sound to bring together Alexandra and her father Lawton Collins with Thorn. Alex and Lawton had been the main characters in an early novel Body Language and I liked them both so much I wanted Thorn to meet them.
2003 Shamus Award Winner — Best Private Eye Novel
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Keep in touch with Jim
We check in with Thorn over at Snappers or Lorelei every once in a while. Maybe he’ll have some new stories to tell us.
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