Five stars does not even open the bidding on Tricia Leedom’s RUM RUNNER. Fifty-three stars, according to me, and I know because I just read the whole damn book including the acknowledgements. Sure, you’re like, “Ha! There’s no way a novel could get fifty-three stars unless you dug up the corpse of Ernest Hemingway, propped him up in a chair with a typewriter and got Jane Austen to edit the manuscript. And even then an old white male chauvinist coot like Papa Hem would barely nudge three stars on a good day.” You may be right about Hem, but you’d be WRONG about RUM RUNNER! Fifty-three effin’ stars!
To start with, the writing is absolutely brilliant, every paragraph meticulously assembled from fresh, organic prose (mostly English but some Spanish) and polished to a high sheen. Great dialogue and clever romantic banter. Other writers will want to steal these lines. Every character, every scene is vividly drawn. The plot skillfully weaves together a number of complex story threads that defy predictability. Yet the whole thing makes a satisfying and rewarding sense and you can exhale at the end. About 20 pages in, I bought the second in the series (BAHAMA MAMA). A few pages from the end, I bought the third (PASSION PUNCH).
All those Cosmo surveys say readers like a book with a sense of humor, and there is a fair amount of humor here. You’d have to dig up the corpses of Groucho Marx and Mark Twain (you may know him as Sam Clemmons), sit them down in a couple of bentwood rockers, give them stinky cigars and wait for the levity to ensue. Well, no, it’s not really that kind of humor. And not like that guy in class who smarts off to the teacher or the guy who makes fart noises in study hall. It’s funny, but not so much as to take the edge off the suspense or detract from the threat of the action. You’ll also find a cigar or two but no worries. You can’t smell them. Feel free to wrinkle your nose at those parts.
But I was really hoping for sharks. I mean adventure, islands, Caribbean, etc., etc.—you’ve got to expect sharks. But sadly there are none, except for a brief mention of Galeocerdo cuvier (the Latin name for tiger shark) early in Chapter 3. Don’t let it get your hopes up. This is the kind of story James Bond only wishes he lived through. Tons of action and suspense and multiple villains of the sort that lightweights like Bond have to deal with one at a time. You will encounter Cessna floatplanes, jet fighters, explosives, Colombian drug lords, kidnappings, machine guns, silencers, switchblades, big wads of cash, sailboats, and some swimming. But alas, no quicksand (sigh). (I had my fingers crossed.) If she’d added quicksand and sharks this would easily be a sixty-seven star read.
Now I know it’s billed as a romantic adventure, but it’s really more ADVENTURE/romance. It is NOT one of those sissy kissing books so your masculinity (if you have some) is safe. The accent is on adventure, though I have to tell you (Spoiler Alert!) there is some kissing. Quite a bit in places. That yearning, tongue-tangling, lip-crushing kind. Not to mention (Trigger Warning!), some rip-snortin’ sex, if you’ve got the patience to wait for it. You Church Lady types will have a lot to go on when you post your prudy-Judy one-star reviews on Amazon. This will definitely NOT become a feature on the Hallmark Channel no matter what Leedom’s agent promises her. You won’t find Tatum Channing playing Jimmy Panama—big chin or not, he’s just too derpy and couldn’t rinse out the stubble brush of a proper adventure hero. And Rachel McAdams as Sophie? C’est absurde! Can she even DO a British accent?
I read a lot of ‘serious’ adventure thrillers and suspense novels—John D. MacDonald, Carl Hiaasen, Tim Hallinan, Tim Dorsey, James Rollins, Lee Child, James Robey, and their ilk. Kissyness aside, this novel fits easily among those. Fans of those authors and action/adventure author Dana Marton and thriller writer Kim Howe will surely get a kick out of this. Best of all, it beats the hell out of WUTHERING HEIGHTS, everything that John Milton wrote, and anything you were required to read in school.