Ice Fire
A Thriller
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3.4 • 39 Ratings
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
In this explosive debut thriller, a judge from the Louisiana bayou goes up against a company on the verge of causing an ecological disaster.
Cajun-born Jock Boucher has overcome modest beginnings to assume the prestigious position of U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Louisiana. One of his first cases on the bench involves a scientist who has been hiding in mortal fear for more than twenty years. The fugitive claims that another judge accepted bribes and helped a relentless global energy company steal his intellectual property: a way to recover energy from below the subsea bed that could end America’s dependence on foreign oil.
Boucher takes on the company and its powerful founder, risking not only his judicial career but his life. He follows a trail of cryptic clues to the bottom of the ocean, and soon finds himself the target of killers—and too far from the law to ever return.
Packed with suspense, science, politics, and murder, this fast-paced, riveting thriller will have readers on the edge of their seats. Ice Fire is the first in a series offered by this authentic new talent.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Grisham fans will enjoy at least the opening of Lyons's debut thriller, the first in a series featuring Jock Boucher, a newly appointed federal judge in post-Katrina New Orleans. When a heart attack fells a colleague, Judge Epson, Boucher takes on Epson's duties on a temporary basis. By chance, that coverage coincides with the return-on-warrant of scientist Bob Palmetto. Shortly before Palmetto vanished 20 years earlier, Epson had held Palmetto in contempt after he refused to disclose confidential documents that detailed his discovery of a way to meet the country's energy needs by "withdrawing methane gas from the frozen subsea surface." Palmetto tells Boucher he believed that Epson had been bribed by a huge company that filed a bogus lawsuit solely to get access to Palmetto's research. Boucher soon finds himself in the midst of a murderous conspiracy that threatens his nascent career on the bench. Some improbable developments, especially in the closing section, undermine the realism of the book's earlier chapters.
