James A. Ciullo Orinoco

Orinoco

James A. Ciullo

Five Star, Jun 2007

ISBN: 1594145539

In 1998 Vermont, Joe LaCarta runs for the US Senate as an independent. On the same day Joe faces the media; his friend Francisco "Pancho" Morales is driving from Northern Baja to his home in San Diego after working as a volunteer at an orphanage. However, he is stopped by the police and two other vehicles. Knocked out, they send him and his car over the nearby ledge killing Pancho.

Joe attends the funeral of his 1972 Peace Corps pal; reflecting back to the idealism they and Pedro "Pete" Donovan made pragmatic with a heist. However, Joe soon realizes that the so called accident was a murder message intended to warn him about his senate run and the robbery that still funds a small town. He knows he can quit the race, but like his two Peace Corps compadres, Joe will not give up because of a threat; instead he plans to confront his unknown adversaries.

ORINOCO is an interesting political thriller as Joe learns the senate plays hard ball with mavericks. The action-packed story line is fast-paced although readers will be hard pressed to accept fifty years old Joe as an action hero. Still he is fun to follow and his political positions enlightening in probably the only state willing to elect a true independent (Bernie Sanders; Joe Lieberman remains a democrat). James A. Ciullo provides a twisting tale in which the past haunts the future.

Harriet Klausner