SummaryThe master of hard-boiled detective fiction is back -- and
better than ever -- with Something's Down There, a blade-
sharp thriller set among the islands of the Caribbean. To the casual observer, Mako Hooker looks like any other
grizzled fishing-boat captain trawling the Bermuda
Triangle. He's content with his nets in the water and a
beer in the cooler, but he's hardly your typical fisherman.
Hooker is in fact a retired government operative taking a
much-needed respite from his highly secret, highly lethal
career in the States. But when local fishermen begin to
fall prey to a mysterious sea creature the islanders
dub "the eater," he discovers the truth in that old saw
about the spy game: You're not retired from the Company
until you're dead. Is the monster a prehistoric beast rising from the depths?
Or mines from a sunken WWII destroyer, only now shaken
loose by the U.S. Navy's depth charges? Or the work of
someone with an agenda even more deeply undercover than
Hooker's? Hooker quietly begins to investigate with the help of his
unwitting fishing partner, Billy Bright; a local movie
heiress, the seductive Judy Durant; and Hooker's old
nemesis, Chana Sterling. The Company sent her as backup,
but Hooker doesn't trust power-hungry government agents too
far -- especially Chana, who once put a bullet in him for
no good reason. As more boats are mauled and the islanders
begin to panic, the action heats up and the players
multiply: a Hollywood film company arrives on the scene,
eager to turn live footage of "the eater" into box-office
payoff, and the heavyweight film executive in charge looks
suspiciously like Tony Pallatzo, a Brooklyn mobster from
Hooker's violent past. As he moves steadily closer to the
truth, Hooker realizes that someone (or something) is
plotting to stop him, and only his rusty instincts will
save him this time. A riveting story of criminal intrigue, greed, romance, and
the mysteries of the deep, Something's Down There showcases
Mickey Spillane at his best.
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