Treasure Coast Deceit

by Paul McElroy

Sleepy Stuart, Florida provides the setting for Federal undercover agent Mack McCray to escape a mob hit in Chicago and seek refuge under the Federal Witness Protection program. He soon discovers that his haven is the focal point for a new assignment. His new handler is a feisty, red-headed female state's attorney in West Palm Beach. Intrigue, suspense, Florida history, gut-splitting Florida 'cracker' humor, drug running, secret agents and mind control experiments are linked by a single South African coin.

320 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2001

Reviews

[David Hibberd · Rating 1 out of 5]

To begin I quote from the author's acknowledgements page, "She...shared the exhilarations of sending out inquiry letters and the sharp, negative pangs of callous rejections." Reading this book clearly indicates why he received "callous rejections". Let's start with the cover pages. On the front and back covers he quotes Nietzsche but changes one word from front to back. Before we even get to the story, he includes a map of parts of the St. Lucie River. On the map is indicated Port Sewall and Sewall Pt. but the map legend calls it Port Sewell.
Our main character is Mack. He has a variety of friends. One is named Rat. On one page Rat has a fluorescent pink helmet. On the next page it has become fluorescent orange. On the next page Rat has a kayak and four short paragraphs later it is a canoe. Then it becomes a kayak again. This isn't the only time his kayak becomes a canoe.
Then there is Bear who is one time called Beat. Bear relates how 30 years earlier his entire family, father, mother, brother, and sister are killed in a house fire. In the very next paragraph his brother, Bobo, has risen from the dead. Maybe he should have been called Lazarus.
There are many times in the book when words are left out of sentences, other words are added to sentences, and still more are changed.
Then comes punctuation errors. Using periods instead of commas. Practically every misuse of quote marks you can imagine. Missing begin quotes, missing end quotes, double quotes instead of single quotes, end quote in place of beginning quotes. When it comes to dashes, I only saw three or four all having spaces before and after them, but he used hyphens instead of dashes.
While the story takes place mainly around Stuart, Florida, there are events happening in Laos during the Viet Nam war. When those events are related, we don't know if we are there at the time they occurred, if it is a flashback we are reading, or if it is a dream. His final pages left me going "Huh?"
All of these many errors tend to disrupt the flow of the story making for jagged reading. They all combined to make this a painful read.

[Chuck · Rating 1 out of 5]

A convoluted, amateurishly written story about a Viet Nam vet who is
forced to join the Federal Witness Protection Program to escape a mob hit.
Not very good. I didn't finish it.

[Josh Liller · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn't get far enough into it to give an opinion on the story. It desperately needed an editor.

[FSU Alumni]

Paul McElroy (B.S. '72)