Engaging plot. Wryly humorous moments and interesting twists. Likable characters and nasty baddies. What else can readers asks for? Well narrated and romantically clean. ( )

author got his author friends from kboards to flood Amazon with bogus complaints, resulting in the removal of every review I've written simply because I wrote an honest review of his book. My honest review, and likely one of the only ones you'll find follows:

If the author spent less time getting acquaintances to write reviews, much of which are skyward pointing praises, and more time polishing his writing, this might have been wholly readable. Unfortunately, the tactic of flooding books with undeserved praise is something of an epidemic here at Amazon, making it impossible to use the number of reviews and overall rating as any sort of metric to determine quality or readability. Readers looking for actual quality books are left to look for the rare honest reviews in endless haystacks, or stuck reading a sample of anything that looks promising before shelling out for it.

As with the previous one I reviewed, the problems with this book begin even before buying the book and they are two-fold. I had no idea the author was gaming his rankings by frequently lowering the price to get lots of buys and then quickly ratcheting the price back up to catch unsuspecting customers at higher prices. Price history revealed this, and there are various apps to help you track this and steer you clear of cheats.

Second, this book says it's "the beginning" and a prequel, having been the fourth book he wrote in the series. However, from what I can tell "the beginning" was actually released first, but may have suffered from poor results and was replaced with the other one later as the first. Third, the even more amateurish nature of this book lends credence to the assumption this was actually the first written. At any rate, I bought both books in my hunt to find the actual first book that would help explain some of the things, especially how it feels that the author doesn't really have any actual military experience or so little experience as to be of no consequence.

In the prologue, readers learn Jesse is 20-year career Marine Gunnery Sergeant, a sniper no less who killed men a half mile off. However, as the story progresses, and excepting for his sometimes crude thoughts about his ex wives and women in general, readers find that Jesse walks, talks and behaves more like some paper pusher from personnel, which is likely where the author worked if he served at all.

Much of the book is written as if Jesse is reading from a bland newspaper article about his own life, even though in the first person. Sort of like I walked here, I turned there, I drove there, I ate this, I hugged her.

Chapter 1 kicks off with statements that almost make you wonder if the author's ever seen a map of the U.S., hint those little islands that are part of the U.S. called Hawaii are tropical too, and excepting that later you know for certain the author has seen a U.S. map due to his extensive regurgitations from mapquest and Wikipedia.

So in Chapter 1, we find a 17 year old girl, Julie, who works in a bar and serves beer, and who is like a daughter to Jesse, and who just happens to be the object of a crush from a 22 year old pot-smoking Jimmy. See any problem with this? Jesse doesn't, except for the pot smoking part. Not even when said 22 year old tells Jesse he's been in love with Julie since he was 17 and she was 12. What a great dad Jesse would make, oops he's already supposed to be a dad from his first wife!

The first 50 pages or so involves Jesse setting up business as a charter captain, which he decided to do on a whim and based on a single comment from a waitress about how he looked like a charter captain. Oh yeah, and he buys a $500,000 45 foot charter boat on a whim too, and doesn't even know the first thing about operating a boat!

Several chapters are spent building up to a an all day chartered dive, that is then summarized in a paragraph like this:

They made a total of six dives and everything went very well. Savannah handled the boat whenever we had to move between dives, using the GPS and waypoints I’d already entered. That allowed me to swap tanks for the divers, while they worked in the salon with Jimmy. They made two dives on one of the reefs we’d chosen and one dive on the other four.

So what was the point of any of it? If the author is trying to build Jesse's credibility as a charter captain, he's already wasted 50 pages doing this. Essentially, all of this seems nothing more than the backstory to the endless back stories in Fallen Palm. And then guess what pops up - another hurricane, as if all those pages in Fallen Palm about a hurricane weren't enough. Or is this entire book just a whole bunch of pages cut from Fallen Palm because they were dead weight?

It literally takes until nearly the 50 percent mark for anything interesting to start happening and then readers get two chapters of intrigue followed by 40 pages of reminiscing and more of the filling from the beginning. In the final chapter, the bad guy, Earl, enters the story again when Jesse finds him. Earl gets shot by the woman he took as a sex slave. The end.

As this so-called book doesn't in any way, shape or form live up to its high ratings, let me reiterate how ticked off I am at the deceptive practices. There's also too much repetition between this one and Fallen Palm, especially in the places visited and such. Again, it's as if, and as stated earlier, this book is simply the dead weight cut from Fallen Palm. ( )

On Veteran's Day, 2014, I joined this author and forty other veteran authors in a special event - we were all donating 100% of our royalties to special charities for every book sold that day. I came across Mr. Stinnett's book, "Fallen Out: Jesse McDermitt Series, The Beginning" on the list - the description had me hooked. I purchased it and a couple other books to read over the coming weeks.

I enjoyed reading this story, intrigued by life in the Keys and the romance of the ocean. Jesse McDermitt retires from the Marine Corps and relocates to the Central Keys of Florida - joining an old Marine friend and his daughter. En route, he didn't have any idea of what he was going to do or where he'd stay until a waitress at a wayward restaurant suggests that he'd make a great Charter Captain during his final lunch stop - he likes the idea and decides that this is what he is going to do.

His friends are surprised at his decision, but pitch in to help him get started. Jesse had recently received an inheritance that allows him to purchase a "big" boat, an uninhabited island, and an array of equipment and supplies. He then secures a slip at a local marina and begins to enjoy retirement. Unfortunately, trouble seems to find Jesse as he crosses paths with hurricane's, pirates and Sex Slave Traders - all intent on taking what is his. Can he stop them all?

I have learned a few things from reading this book and purchased the next book in the series to see what happens next to Mr. McDermitt. Great job Mr. Stinnett! Looking forward to the rest of the series.

John Podlaski, author
Cherries - A Vietnam War Novel ( )