The Thriller Writers' First Blog

Well, we're finally on the web. The El Morro Connection is available for purchase on Barnes & Noble.com and it'll soon be available on Amazon.com. This is exciting. I am so happy to have reached this point.
Let me tell you a little about the book.

The El Morro Connection

Jon Channing and Charlie Lennox are childhood friends who have been through midlife divorces and decide to meet for an overdue vacation in Spain. Jon is British, they met as kids when Jon’s family was living and working in the US. They meet in El Morro, an out-of –the way but idyllic seaside town on the Mediterranean coast of Spain. As they lie on the beach their first day there enjoying a cold beer, they knew this was going to be a magnificent few weeks of rest and relaxation. The opportunity they had been looking for to recharge and turn the corner in their lives. To leave some miserable and unhappy times behind and move on. Seeing boats on the horizon, Charlie suggested that they start this pause in life with a fishing excursion.

The following morning at daybreak they were headed out to sea on a last minute charter Charlie was able to get because someone had canceled. Charlie had experienced the thrill of big game fishing and he wanted to introduce his friend to the adrenaline-charged rush of that unique battle of wills. Like Santiago in Hemingway’s epic the Old Man and the Sea. As Charlie hooked the first fish they witnessed that remarkable and majestic dance of nature when a big marlin explodes through the surface to dance that wild but graceful choreography. As Charlie struggled against the powerful fish the engines stalled. The deck hand opened the engine compartment to investigate and Charlie immediately saw the problem, a bomb. Moments later they were diving into the sea as the boat explodes behind them. Not everyone survives. They spend a few harrowing days clinging to flotsam and fighting sharks and desperation in an attempt to stay alive. As they drifted in that state of existence somewhere between life and death, they are assaulted yet again. Only this time it was an unintentional accident. A hapless couple on a weekend sailing excursion soaking up sun au naturel, collides with them as they cling to life, ultimately rescuing them from their slow but certain passage to a grave in the sea.

Once safely back onshore, Jon is ready to forget the ordeal and maybe even leave. Charlie, with his inimitable curiosity honed from years of traveling to obscure places in the world wants to find out why someone would want to kill them. Or if it wasn’t them that were the target, then who was? And why?

The story crosses their path with a former French mercenary who is living a quiet, unobtrusive life in El Morro. While he fences money for a ruthless African dictator whose country has recently been discovered to hold oil deposits that exceed Saudi Arabia’s. The dictator is pilfering his country’s money while his subjects remain mired in abject poverty. But a sizable sum of the money is going somewhere else in the world, to finance a cause. A vile and formidable cause led by none other than one of the world’s most infamous radical purveyors of terror. The FBI, Scotland Yard, MI6, the Secret Service all become involved. Two old friends decide to go fishing while on vacation setting them on a course of events that ultimately lead to a profound change in the geopolitics of the entire world.

So, where do you want to vacation next year…

A novel by C. Clayton Lewis