Floater on the Reef

About the Book

Naked Teenager Floating on the Reef: College student and part-time prostitute, Julie Larsen, is found floating facedown on the coral reef. The local police write it off as a simple drowning while the girl was fishing, even though she has deep lacerations and bruises on his upper body and her clothes, gear and truck are missing. She has had numerous, violent arguments with her stepfather, and several ugly incidents with two of her navy clients. The girl 's wealthy grandfather is dissatisfied with the police report and hires the Saipan International Investigations Agency, owned and operated by retired police sergeant Tom Parker and Chamorro warrior Carlos Montano, to investigate the incident. The agency is overwhelmed with other work and bring aboard stateside retired Detectives Trish Friedrich and Dalmacio DeJesus Dalton (3D), along with polygraph expert Daniel Delgado, to help out. The crew soon agrees with the grandfather about the shoddy, false report and their quest for the truth take them as far away as the Philippines and Guam, USA. A key witness turns out to be Jungle Jesus, a hermit living deep inside the tropical forest, who knows probably what happened to the young victim. The striking denouement concludes with astonishing connections between the murdered amateur prostitute, her family, the island social and government structures and the corrupt cops. As a coordinated effort, the private investigators are determined to see Julie 's murderer brought to justice.

About the Author

Joe Race was a policeman and executive with law enforcement agencies in California, Micronesia, Oregon, and Washington, with several assignments in Kosova and Bosnia. He now teaches at the Northern Marianas College and serves as a consultant for several companies. Joe lives on beautiful Saipan, USA, with his wife and family, and assorted mutts, fighting roosters, humongous rats, and barking geckos. He wants to warn one and all that he has two new fully-licensed teenage drivers on the road. When Joe is lazing about, you can find him under a shade tree listening to the old-timers, gathering more stories for recording island history and â*œtalkinâ*™ story.â** Besides seeing more islands and studying more reefs, the big adventure of the year will be trekking near Kathmandu in Nepal. This is his sixth novel. Enjoy!