Showing results by author "Wayne Stinnett" in All Categories

Things in the Middle Florida Keys aren’t as idyllic as they seem. If one looks closely, there’s a layer of dirt just below the surface. The butt-ugly kind of dirt that’s hard to get off. Things move slowly in the Keys—locals call it island time—but there are some for whom it seems that time is at a standstill; whose clocks revolve only around the tides, fish migrations, and the rising and setting of the sun and moon.

Things in the Middle Florida Keys aren’t as idyllic as they seem. If one looks closely, there’s a layer of dirt just below the surface. The butt-ugly kind of dirt that’s hard to get off. Things move slowly in the Keys—locals call it island time—but there are some for whom it seems that time is at a standstill; whose clocks revolve only around the tides, fish migrations, and the rising and setting of the sun and moon. Jesse McDermitt remembers the Keys the way he’d first found them as a young man.

After many years of wondering about what he'd seen on the fateful day he joined Armstrong Research, Jesse McDermitt now has the means to return to the shipwreck he only glimpsed for a second during a harrowing ascent from the darkest depths of the Florida Straits. That glimpse cost his friend an...

In this fourth installment of the Jesse McDermitt series, Jesse faces an antagonist unlike any he's faced before, post-traumatic stress. A friend's son, who was dishonorably discharged from the Corps, is suffering from nightmares, brought on by the incident that was the catalyst for his discharge. With Jesse's help he learns to cope with his demons and gets his discharge overturned, so that he may once again serve the country he loves.

Six months out of high school and just days after finishing Marine boot camp, Jesse McDermitt is finally ready to unwind and have a little fun when he goes home on leave. But everything Jesse remembers—his friends, his family, the sparkling beaches and familiar waters of the Caloosahatchee River and Pine Island Sound, even his faithful Lab, Molly, have all changed.

Jesse McDermitt has done it. He has escaped the ugliness so pervasive in modern society, and along with his family and a few close friends, they have set out aboard a boat he designed himself for living long periods totally off the grid. The first couple of months are peaceful, uneventful, and by today's standards, quite boring. But the crew of Taranis have the sun, sea, and quiet coves to explore, where there aren't even any footprints in the sand. Until they reach their destination.

On a kayak outing with friends, Jesse's daughter finds and rescues a manatee suffering from respiratory problems. The red tide has returned, and fish are dying by the thousands, along with dolphins, manatees, and sea birds. The algal bloom is a naturally occurring phenomenon, but this time it's much worse. Theories abound; it's something left over from the previous spring's coronavirus outbreak, it's caused by pollution, someone is intentionally creating a super-algae....But there's something far more sinister at work, and it's up to Jesse to find out what it is and put a stop to it.

Paradise isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be. Few people know this as well as Jesse McDermitt, retired Marine and former government operative. In the aftermath of an intense mission in coastal Mexico, Jesse wants nothing more than to get back to his boat; to just sail away and forget all about the firefight and his warrior past. Jesse is forced to don the warrior’s mask once again. This time to catch a ghoulish killer who is stalking the villages and jungles outside Belize City.

After watching his yacht burn to the waterline in a fiery explosion, Jerry Snyder is forced to make a deal with the only devil who can help track down a lead—his estranged, mob-connected father figure, Arlen Burkhart.

It'd been a long time; a lot of things had changed. Since sailing away from Cane Garden Bay, Jesse McDermitt had changed. Waking one morning, the smell of rum still on his breath, Jesse realizes he doesn't much like the change anymore. The mask that he'd freely put on didn't fit right. It was the mask of a drifting, womanizing boat bum, and it concealed his inner turmoil. Peeling off the mask, he soon realizes what a mess he's in.

Unbeknownst to Jesse, an environmentally conscious woman from his past has stumbled onto a drug manufacturing cartel in Virginia while working on a pollution mitigation problem. The cartel responds by sending someone to kill people Jesse cares for. A contract killer stalks the woman all the way to Miami, leaving bodies in his wake. With the help of an old flame in the FBI, Jesse goes to the snow-covered Appalachians to get to the root of the trouble: an unscrupulous prosecutor and dirty sheriff, who are producing LSD on an unbelievable scale.

Charity Styles had been the catalyst for the demise of many. But in the past that usually meant the end of a human life. As an assassin for the CIA, it came with the territory. But this time she feels responsible for the end of her friend’s relationship. She sets out on a voyage to find one of the partners in the hopes of rectifying the rift she helped create. Along the way, she encounters a deadly foe, bent on becoming rich regardless of how many must suffer or die.

Perhaps you've thought it might be cool to write a book but always believed it was beyond your reach and ability. It's not. To be more precise, it doesn't have to be. All you lack is the motivation to get started, the tenacity to stay with it, and the expertise to get it finished. I can help you with the first two.In this book I'll show you some of the rewards that might come your way by becoming an independent author. I also provide a few tips on how to overcome certain common stumbling blocks.

A plane crash in 1976 left a young boy without a father, but 46 years later, when Eddie Rains loses his mother, a letter hidden among her possessions reveals a secret she’d kept to herself all those years. Driven by hope, Eddie sets out to discover the truth about the man he dearly loved yet barely knew. Aided by strangers he meets along the way, his challenging search turns deadly when one thing becomes crystal clear...he’s not the only one looking.

Since the recent death of a wealthy, yet perverted, businessman, Charity Styles has been hiding in plain sight, as if challenging anyone to come after her. She’s on her own once more, living day to day on her beloved Wind Dancer, anchored near a quaint little Gulf Coast town in the Florida Panhandle. But when the son of a fishing client ends up dead, the father’s employer hires Charity to find the person responsible.

Paradise has a price. For Jesse McDermitt, that price is his moral compass and a bullet. The retired Marine and charter skipper takes on a passenger in Nassau, a young woman who is a breath of fresh air. She introduces him to the laid-back cruising crowd on an idyllic small cay in the Berry Islands. Jesse takes to the relaxing lifestyle like a fish to water. Living each day on its own terms is a new experience for Jesse, but it doesn't last long. Trouble always seems to find him.

Miles from the laid-back lifestyle of No Name Key, and just shy of the raucous nightlife of Miami and South Beach, lies Coconut Grove, a tropical oasis with a distinct Bohemian flair. Lately, a seedy underside has emerged along the Grove's waterfront, preying on adventurous young women. Somewhere amid all the glitz and glamour, hides a thief who stole a fortune in Aztec emeralds. Or did he? Jesse McDermitt must first determine if the victim herself is a thief. The trail of clues leads him to evidence that the thief may be involved in a string of more heinous crimes.

A young treasure diving couple is sadistically murdered in the back country of the Florida Keys - and Jesse McDermitt's friend is the prime suspect. The reclusive federal agent and former combat Marine launches his own investigation in the face of overwhelming evidence. McDermitt is certain of his friend's innocence. When a third victim's body is discovered lodged among the mangrove roots on Knockemdown Key, the race to stop a serial killer begins. Detective Devon Evans will do anything to apprehend the killer before he claims another victim.

A rushed rescue mission doesn't go as planned for retired Marine Jesse McDermitt and the crew of Gaspar's Revenge. The two kidnap victims are rescued, but they'd rather be taken back to the Jamaican drug runners who were hired to kill them than return home to laid-back Beaufort, South Carolina, and give the man who wants them dead the chance to hire someone more competent. Crisscrossing hundreds of miles of open Atlantic Ocean, with a weather eye on a powerful hurricane, Jesse and his crew come up with a plan to lure out the man behind the double murder plot.

The quiet and solitude found in the backcountry and wetlands of south Florida has been shattered. Someone is using explosives to fish the ecologically fragile patch reefs in the shallow waters of Florida Bay, north of the Keys. Retired Marine Jesse McDermitt doesn't like explosions in his backyard. Knowing his penchant for inserting himself in matters best left to the authorities, his friends withhold information from him about the destruction to the delicate, living corals. Jesse doesn't much like this, either.