"Interesting plot"

As a retired Infantry Lieutenant Colonel, author Hal Bray has managed to incorporate knowledge from his background into his fiction, and instills the military title onto his protagonist, Brock Joshua.

Brock is sailing easy, working as a manager at a prestigious country club in Texas, with some investments and ties to the oil industry. That is until he learns that rumors are spreading. Oil investors are about to loose their money. When blackmailed into quietly investigating the validity of the rumors, Brock finds himself caught up in a fiery conspiracy fed by greed, wealth and power.

When the blackmailers are murdered, Brock becomes the prime suspect. As he works to clear his name and to find answers to the burning questions that keep popping up, more and more people are murdered. The killers seem to be zeroing in on him. If he can't solve the mystery soon, he may also wind up the victim of murder.

Though the author does a lot of telling, when showing his readers what is going on would be preferable, and though this reviewer found a lot of the dialogue to be weak, forced and not very natural sounding, Bray's novel is structured around an interesting plot. Some of the action scenes are exciting. Perhaps fans of Tom Clancy or Stephen Coonts would enjoy this type of political thriller.

Reviewed by Phillip Tomasso
Posted August 28, 2003

Summary

Brockland Joshua, Brock to his friends, was a retired Infantry Lieutenant Colonel of the United States Army who, through a series of turns, became the manager of a golf and country club in Corpus Christi, Texas, on the last developed barrier reef island in the United States.

In doing his job Brock has become involved with some high powered members of his club who want him to do a little intelligence gathering for them. It seems the OPEC countries and our nation's oil producing capabilities are on a collision course. He does not realize that this good deed will draw him into a web of intrigue and danger that will involve organized crime on both sides of the Texas border and leave him marked as the killer of these same friends.

As Brock scrambles to prove his innocence, people begin dying around him, including his beautiful blonde lover, wife of the corrupt oil baron he has exposed. He cannot do it alone. So he contacts two old Army buddies and they weigh in. As they plan to clear his name, he is confident that he can do it. While no good deed may go unpunished, Brock intends to hand out a little punishment of his own.