Action/Adventure/Thriller
Date Published: 02-06-2024
Publisher: Sunbury Press, Inc.
REAP THE WIND is THE PERFECT STORM meets THE FIRM.
The novel is an action/adventure thriller in which three lawyers flee Houston heading to Cincinnati in a rented Lincoln Town Car. They must drive across Texas and the Midwest in the midst of the worst climate change-induced hurricane of the century so Josh Goldberg can be with his girlfriend who is giving birth to their baby. They have to survive a hurricane, tornado, hailstorm, driving rain, and each other to get there.
Josh’s travel companions are his best friend—an alcoholic, drug-addicted lawyer—and his boss who connives to derail his plans so she can get to Philadelphia for a business meeting with a Norwegian billionaire. The odyssey is dangerous on many levels and may be a suicide trip.
The
rain rat-a-tat-tatted against the fuselage of the Weatherbird aircraft and
sounded like an old World War II movie soundtrack the moment before the plane
was shot from the sky. Prologue
At twenty-five hundred feet, they
broke through the cloud ceiling and Windy could see the ocean, gray and
tempestuous, enraged and wrathful, with swells the height of skyscrapers, and
nothing but rough water for hundreds of miles around. Not exactly ideal for a
water landing. This would not be Captain Sully and his U.S. Airways Airbus on
the Hudson.
The Navy or Coast Guard would
dispatch a ship to retrieve them.
If there was anything left to pick
up. Prologue
Generally speaking, partnership was
dangled in front of the associates in the way a fish was dangled in front of a
cartoon cat running on a treadmill on the old Saturday morning TV shows. Always
just out of reach. Geoff was two years and eleven months into those three years
at Bartram, Wynne. His time was nearly up. Chapter 1
I love guys like Abdul. He got to
this country from Jordan ten years ago and is proud of his heritage. We talk
about Jordan and Israel often when he’s taking me around. They are civil
conversations. Here’s a man who came to this country with very little in his
pockets and drove someone else’s limo fourteen hours a day. Now he owns a
thriving business with a dozen drivers. How American is that? He loves America.
Chapter 2
As Keisha pulled out her cell phone
to text Josh, an oncoming light blinded her, and she looked up. A
tractor-trailer, going too fast on the slick road, was headed straight for
them.
The semi’s air brakes shrieked, and
the trucker leaned on his horn, blaring a frenzied warning.
Abdul’s knuckles were white on the
steering wheel, his eyes wide open, his teeth clenched and bared.
He cut the wheel first right, then
left, then right. The big car fishtailed and skidded sideways across the
shoulder.
Keisha yelled, “Oh God!”
She grabbed the overhead strap with
one hand and covered her face with the other.
She waited for the impact.
The limo’s tires squealed.
The car skidded onto the shoulder
toward the embankment.
Keisha held her breath awaiting the
impact. There was none. The semi continued without stopping or hitting
anything. The limo, however, hit some debris as it slid on the shoulder.
Keisha first heard, then felt, the
blowout.
Abdul continued pumping the brakes
and working the wheel to keep the limo going straight. It was a masterful job
of driving and if it weren’t for the blowout, they would have been able to
continue to the airport. They slowed and he pulled off the road, two wheels in
the grass near a guiderail and two on the shoulder.
The limo idled quietly as they sat
saying nothing for several seconds. Finally, Abdul turned around and looked at
Keisha. “That son of a pig. Are you okay, Ms. Keisha? The baby?”
Keisha breathed heavily as she evaluated her status. She seemed okay, but the limo had lurched back and forth several times. The seatbelt was snug below the baby, and she hoped there was no damage. “I think I’m fine. I just want to get home .” Chapter 4
Abdul laughed. “Mr. Josh, you’ve
not spent any time in the souk, I see. That’s not how this works. I give you a
price, then you give me a lower price. We argue for a few minutes, and you tell
me how worthless my car is, you wouldn’t transport pigs or your mother-in-law
in it, you don’t really need it, blah, blah, then we agree in the middle.” Chapter
11
About the Author
Joel Burcat is an award-winning author of three environmental legal thrillers: Drink to Every Beast (about illegal dumping of toxic waste), Amid Rage (about a coal mine permit battle), and Strange Fire (about a fracking dispute). His most recent book, Reap the Wind, published by Sunbury Press, Inc., is about three lawyers trying to drive from Houston to Cincinnati in a climate change-induced hurricane.
He has received a number of awards, including the Gold Medal for environmental fiction from Readers’ Favorite for Strange Fire, and as a Finalist in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards for Amid Rage. He has written numerous short stories. Burcat imbues his novels with facts to educate his readers about critical environmental issues while they are being entertained by the story.
Burcat’s books are infused with realism developed over a forty plus year career as an environmental lawyer. Burcat has worked in government as an Assistant Attorney General and in a private law practice. He was selected as the 2019 Lawyer of the Year in Environmental Litigation (for Central PA) by Best Lawyers in America. Among his numerous professional writings, he has edited two significant books on environmental and energy law. He has retired from the practice of law and works full-time as a novelist.
He is an active member of the International Thriller Writers and PennWriters.
Burcat lives in Harrisburg, Pa. with his wife, Gail.
Contact Links
Twitter: @JoelBurcat
Purchase Links
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