Overview
From Put-in-Bay to Detroit to Grosse Ile to Cedar Key to Wooster to Northeast Ohio
Ace Put-in-Bay-based investigative reporter EMERSON MOORE has the tables cruelly turned on him following the murder trial and conviction of Detroit mobster, JIMMY DIAMONDS. During a wildly daring prison van hijacking and go-fast boat escape on the Detroit River, Moore incurs a severe head injury during a gun battle (delete this). When the getaway boat is found abandoned on Lake Erie, Moore is missing.
That’s not all that’s missing. When Diamonds learns that Moore’s memory is missing, he convinces Moore that he’s Manny Elias, one of organized crime’s top hitmen. Moore/Elias is whisked to the backwaters of Cedar Key, Florida by Mafioso FAT FREDDY FABRIZIO to be "retrained" in the art of killing. Moore/Elias later surfaces in Ohio where Diamonds uses him to take revenge on former criminal associates in Detroit, Columbus, Cleveland and Chagrin Falls.
Completing one deadly assignment after another, Moore/Elias is unable to reveal his identity to a beautiful woman he befriends near his Wooster hideout. A confrontation with rival hitman SANTORO at a Lake Erie marina leads to the eventual death of one person who holds the key to Elias’ true identity.
The novel is fast-moving and action-packed. It shows emotional turmoil as Moore/Elias struggles with the trauma of his memory loss and an inherent ethical dilemma with cold-blooded murder. It’s further complicated when two of Moore’s ex-SEAL buddies, MIKE "MAD DOG" ADAMS and SAM DUNCAN, find themselves in the cross hairs of Moore’s weapon and Moore/Elias is ordered to kill them in what is another exciting showdown and satisfying finish to a complex series of twists and turns.
