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McKeena Rhodes
#1
BY Owen Laukkanen
G. P. Putnam’s
Sons
May 8, 2018/ ISBN 9780735212633
Thriller / Sea Action/Adventure
Reviewed
by Elise Cooper
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Gale
Force
by Owen Laukkanen is a realistic story where readers take the
journey with the characters as they board the ship, and feel
the splash of the waves. It is an attest to the author’s
writing style he is able to make an intense adventure story
of a maritime salvage operation.
The author based the story on “The wreck at the center
of the tale is based on the real-life saga of the Cougar Ace,
which did, in fact, capsize near the Aleutian Islands. You’re
so isolated on the water, and at the mercy of very powerful
forces of nature. The potential for conflict and action is always
there. It’s just such a different environment from anything
any of us is really used to, in particular in really remote
places like the Aleutian Islands or the Arctic Ocean.”
The plot has McKenna Rhodes inheriting the Gale Force, a salvage
boat after her father died in violent weather on the open seas.
Hearing about a salvage operation, she and the crew decide to
attempt a rescue of a freighter, the Pacific Lion, which has
turned over on its side during a horrific storm. A stowaway
who has stolen fifty million in bonds from a Japanese gangster
hampers them along with other salvage tugs. After finally getting
a contract from the insurance company McKenna and crew can earn
$30 million for saving the ship and its property.
She is smart, brave, beautiful, and wants to prove that she
is able to navigate this male-dominated world. He describes
her, “I wanted to write a character that is daunted by
the magnitude and responsibility of being a captain. I based
her insecurities on a lot of people I met that worked on the
water and are aware that if a mistake is made people’s
lives are at stake; thus, constant worriers. Also, when I was
on a train going from Seattle to Los Angeles I met this single
mother from Idaho. In order to feed her four children, she started
a trucking company. I thought she would make a good character
for a story since trucking like tugboats is a male dominated
boys club. She told me how she struggled with men who tried
breaking contracts because they objected to a woman trying to
make inroads. I wanted to show how McKenna also struggles with
this. Both were seen as a small fish in a big pond.”
Another character in the book is the ocean the alternates between
playing an antagonist and a protagonist. “I wanted to
write it as an ever-present threat. Every second the crew spends
on the ship they must realize that the ocean could suddenly
turn on them. The main characters love the ocean and feel at
home around it. They are attracted to it; yet, at any moment
it could destroy them. One day the ocean is beautiful and calm,
while the next day a storm can pick up, showing the ocean’s
anger, basically eating someone alive. The environment is as
unpredictable as any human character in the book.”
The first in a new series starts out with a splash, not a drizzle.
It is a riveting and intense action-filled story with very well-developed
characters.
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