Title: Destruction Island
Author: Fredrick Cooper
Genre: Adult Fiction / Thriller
Book Blurb:
The secrets of Destruction Island lay hidden for over a hundred years only to be discovered then hidden again for another hundred years in the logs of a lighthouse keeper. During a post-tsunami debris survey, the discovery of a body of a Native American washed up on a beach leads to a strange series of events where the long-hidden secret is revealed and Earl Armstrong, a descendent of the First Keeper of the Destruction Island Lighthouse and his friends seek to unravel its mystery. As forces beyond his control begin to bear down on him, Earl sets off on the race of his life—a race to discover the secrets his great-grandfather chose not to reveal and to prevent a greedy collector of antiquities from being the first to unearth them—a man who will let nothing stand in his way, be it theft, taking of hostages or murder. Yet both Earl and his adversary may have to contend with an even tougher person, a member of the Japanese mafia and her gang of thugs who are racing to locate a valuable treasure lost in the vast mat of tsunami debris that is about to become an ecological disaster for the Pacific Northwest Coast and the island’s shores.
Excerpt:
Norika Edo paced back and forth next to one of the huge picture windows of her apartment that offered a panoramic view of the Roppongi District of Tokyo. She spoke loudly into a satellite phone and then tossed it onto a couch as she stopped pacing and stared for a long time at the carefully manicured gardens five floors below her. The fifth floor of the Izumi Villa Tower was entirely leased by the Edosan Corporation, an international import company dealing principally in precious stones and gold. There were actually very few employees, as most of their buying and selling was arranged by telephone and computer. Norika Edo was tall for a Japanese woman, in her early forties, and still possessing the exquisite features of a woman in her twenties. Due to the sudden death of her husband she had recently become the sole owner of the company. The fifth floor of the tower served both as the corporate offices and her residence. The phone call she had just received did little to alleviate her frustration, a feeling that she unrelentingly passed on to all of her employees and others in her hire.
Norika was making very little progress in resolving a problem that had consumed her every waking moment of the last four months—from the day that the island of Honshu had experienced a major earthquake. The fact that nearly 20,000 people had died, 400,000 people had been left homeless, and a nuclear power plant had leaked radioactivity and caused a meltdown did not bother her. Her concern was for a very small, unmanned watercraft—an escape pod that had been lashed to the aft deck of a freighter that just happened to be anchored in the Miyako Harbor at the time of the quake. The Kanji Maru had turned on her port side and had been pushed under a bridge by the receding tsunami wave, drowning most of the crew as the boat sunk just outside the bay. One of the survivors reported that her husband made it into the ship’s lifeboat which may have remained attached to the ship.
For weeks after the tsunami, Norika dispatched search team after search team to find the small escape pod from the vessel amongst the debris that continued to drift eastward across the Pacific. Each day the reports were the same—the pod had not been found. She kept the real reason for the search a secret, leaving Edosan employees and the search teams mystified as to why she wanted so desperately to find the boat, knowing that her husband was most likely dead. Only she and one of her most trusted employees, who had just made a report to her, knew that the little pod contained one hundred million dollars in bearer bonds from an offshore bank in the Marshall Islands and another one hundred and fifty million dollars worth of diamonds that belonged to her now-dead husband and his business associates. What the rest of her employees did know was that their boss, her dead husband, was a Yakuza—a crime lord—and they dare not fail in their search.
Her personal cell phone rang again. Norika retrieved it and looked at the number on the display. It blinked “Unknown Caller.” Her tone was terse as she took the call. “This is a private number. Who’s calling?” she demanded.
“Now, Norika that is no way to greet a long-time associate of your husband.”
“Yuri Matasuba! Even if you had called through my personal secretary, I have no reason to offer any pleasantries to you. And in case you are thinking of hanging up quickly, watch your ass. You may get stuck with a needle filled with puffer fish toxin.”
“Oh, a most unpleasant lady making such violent threats,” Yuri replied with a voice that was even icier than her own. “So I am pleased to respond in kind. Your dead husband was involved in a certain business transaction with me and another associate whose identity I cannot reveal. It involves a large sum of bearer bonds and diamonds that now seem to have disappeared from our account in the Marshalls. My source informed me that your husband was the person who withdrew, shall we say, these joint assets. He covered his tracks well, but not well enough! Before he most unfortunately died, the young clerk who assisted your husband told us everything. We would like to receive our share—with interest, of course. You have ten days to make arrangements for the transfer. You will be contacted as to the details. Have a most pleasant day, Norika.”
Norika Edo was both furious and frightened as she threw the phone across the room. She turned to the window facing the east side of the city and beyond. Somewhere out on the Pacific was the escape pod with her husband, the bonds and diamonds. It had to be there, and she had an impossible ten days to find it.
Buy Links (including Goodreads and BookBub):
Barnes and Noble
Amazon Books
Destruction Island: Earl Armstrong Series Book 2: Cooper, Fredrick: 9780988198333: Amazon.com: Books
Goodreads
Bookbub
What makes your featured book a must-read?
Destruction Island is a fast-paced, adventure thriller. The combination of Native American characters, legends, a unique setting, and the unfolding of a 200-year-old mystery surrounding a forbidden island will intrigue readers of all ages for a compelling read.
Giveaway –
Enter to win a $25 Amazon gift card:
Open Internationally. You must have a valid Amazon US or Amazon Canada account to win. Runs December 7 – December 15, 2021. Winner will be drawn on December 16, 2021.
Author Biography:
Fredrick Cooper was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest and lived in Alaska for many years. Before obtaining a doctorate in civil engineering and pursuing a professional career, he worked as a road surveyor, longshoreman, commercial fisherman, cannery worker, and even as a technician and news anchor for a cable television station in a small community in Alaska. He is of Coastal Salish and Lower Chehalis Band descent and is enrolled with a Northwest Indian Tribe. In addition to his second career in writing fiction, he is a master woodcarver, specializing in Native American artifacts such as canoe paddles and ceremonial items. He is a member of the Pacific Northwest Writers Association and the Willamette Writers and his novels have received several awards. He currently lives in Portland, Oregon, and is working on another story.
Social Media Links:
Twitter: @FredrickCooper17
Facebook: www.facebook.com/fred.cooper.14473/
Author website: https://www.fredrickcooperauthor.com
I love reading thrillers. Destruction Island sounds like a really interesting place to be.
Thank you, Fredrick, for sharing your book in our Indie Authors Bookish Event!