Walking K

by Wes Demott

Former Vietnam POW Jacob Slaughter is sent to Hanoi to negotiate a trade agreement on behalf of the United States. Back in-country, he is escorted to a rotting building where he is outraged to find his former cellmate and friend, Captain Charles Wooten, still being held. Wooten's condition is pathetic but he's alive. How much longer is up to Slaughter. Slaughter returns to Washington and fights for the trade concessions Vietnam has demanded before they'll give Wooten and twenty-two other American soldiers their freedom.

294 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

I was 19 when I first escaped over an international border. Mexican Federales stormed into a bloody brawl at a crappy bar deep inside Juarez, and I stopped fighting to bolt down the stairs. A fast moving parade of uniforms chased this gringo through crowded streets as they blasted their whistles in warning of a bullet in the back.

I absolutely loved that feeling and have been jumping borders ever since, usually with a legal visa, sometimes with a black market one, and occasionally with no cover-of-authority at all (I'm not good with rules). I've jumped for governments and security clients, but mostly out of my own lust for adventure, and I've always done it alone. That is until my beautiful, brainy, Belgian wife – a war-zone veteran who's fluent in several languages and can drive just about anything with wheels – teamed up with me.

I'm Wes DeMott and I'm an adventurer. I can't help myself. My dad laid out the pattern and my mom sewed the seams. I've broken dozens of bones and required hundreds of stitches to close wounds, but I still live for the metal taste that only comes when excitement barely outpaces genuine fear. Add an ocean to that exotic flavor and I'm happier than a kid with an ant farm.

I'm also an award-winning, international bestselling novelist. I don't write stories about outer space or werewolves because I don't know squat about either one, but like Hemingway and London before me, you can bet your last canteen of water that I'm pretty damn familiar with everything you'll read in my books. To adventure, my friend…Wes
enough to try. Tortuga Gold reflects a fun new chapter in Wes’s own life as he’s joined in his adventures by his beautiful Belgian wife.

Reviews

[Angela Stringer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Walking K drew me into a world all too real. It celebrated the honor and courage of American Soldiers and contrasted it against the bitter reality of those 'souless sell-outs' that value perception and position over integrity. Wes managed to stir a multitude of emotions within me including pride in America's finest - the American Soldier, anger at a system that would forget and sacrifice those who paid out debt for freedom and sadness that this story portrays a segment of our society that actually exists.