Showing results by author "Wayne Stinnett" in All Categories

Jesse McDermitt has done it. He has escaped the ugliness so pervasive in modern society, and along with his family and a few close friends, they have set out aboard a boat he designed himself for living long periods totally off the grid. The first couple of months are peaceful, uneventful, and by today's standards, quite boring. But the crew of Taranis have the sun, sea, and quiet coves to explore, where there aren't even any footprints in the sand. Until they reach their destination.

Jesse McDermitt is back, just as he promised. This time, he is thrust into the heart of the Florida Panhandle's Tate's Hell State Forest, where the tranquil surroundings belie a dangerous secret—a network of clandestine meth labs hidden against the backdrop of the Forgotten Coast’s natural beauty. Jesse, a retired Marine turned charter boat captain, has brought his family to Apalachicola “for the oysters.” But being who he is, the leisurely cruise soon spins into a gripping quest to unravel the truth behind the illicit operations threatening the region.

Danger lurks in the sleepy little town of Marathon, in the middle of the Florida Keys, as well as in the swamps of the Everglades. But danger doesn't expect to run into a man like Jesse. A man who will not only respond swiftly in facing it, but with a vengeance unexpected.

Six months out of high school and just days after finishing Marine boot camp, Jesse McDermitt is finally ready to unwind and have a little fun when he goes home on leave. But everything Jesse remembers—his friends, his family, the sparkling beaches and familiar waters of the Caloosahatchee River and Pine Island Sound, even his faithful Lab, Molly, have all changed.

Perhaps you've thought it might be cool to write a book but always believed it was beyond your reach and ability. It's not. To be more precise, it doesn't have to be. All you lack is the motivation to get started, the tenacity to stay with it, and the expertise to get it finished. I can help you with the first two.In this book I'll show you some of the rewards that might come your way by becoming an independent author. I also provide a few tips on how to overcome certain common stumbling blocks.

It’s been three months since Jesse McDermitt had any time off to go back home to Florida. When two surprise openings on the leave roster open up, he and his friend Rusty Thurman jump on it, and head back to the Keys for some scuba diving. The husband of a local reporter’s friend has nearly been killed. Not once, but four times in less than a month. The reporter is Jesse’s new girlfriend and they become curious. How does a man survive four attempts on his life?

In this fourth installment of the Jesse McDermitt series, Jesse faces an antagonist unlike any he's faced before, post-traumatic stress. A friend's son, who was dishonorably discharged from the Corps, is suffering from nightmares, brought on by the incident that was the catalyst for his discharge. With Jesse's help he learns to cope with his demons and gets his discharge overturned, so that he may once again serve the country he loves.

When a group of strangers purchase land on Tortola and Norman Island to set up a commune, the locals simply write them off as an odd sort - until one of their bloated bodies washes up on the shore of a nearby resort island. As luck would have it, Jesse McDermitt is visiting a friend on Norman Island after tracking a terrorist submarine from the Windward Islands. The sub was destroyed by locals on the Dutch island of Saba, so Jesse had nothing much else to do. What he wasn’t looking for was a murderous cult at the center of a drug manufacturing and distribution ring.

Jesse McDermitt is starting a new chapter in his life. As captain of the research vessel Ambrosia, his mission is to study the oceans and seafloor, searching for rich oil deposits. His unstated mission is to locate and eradicate the enemies of society on behalf of Armstrong Research, a secretive organization funded by some of the richest men in the world. When word gets out about a massive drug and human trafficking cartel moving tons of illegal drugs, along with hundreds of slave laborers, out of Venezuela, Jesse is tasked with stopping them at all cost.

Jesse McDermitt lives alone on an isolated island in the Florida Keys where he runs a charter fishing business. Retired from the Marine Corps for six years, he wants nothing more than to relax, fish, dive and enjoy the laid back lifestyle of the islands. Russ, his former Platoon Sergeant and old friend, dies unexpectedly in a mysterious scuba diving accident and Jesse becomes suspicious.

Unbeknownst to Jesse, an environmentally conscious woman from his past has stumbled onto a drug manufacturing cartel in Virginia while working on a pollution mitigation problem. The cartel responds by sending someone to kill people Jesse cares for. A contract killer stalks the woman all the way to Miami, leaving bodies in his wake. With the help of an old flame in the FBI, Jesse goes to the snow-covered Appalachians to get to the root of the trouble: an unscrupulous prosecutor and dirty sheriff, who are producing LSD on an unbelievable scale.

After a terrible defeat in Key West, where the subject of Jesse McDermitt’s identity fraud investigation gets away, and which almost costs him dearly, Jesse returns home to his island in the Content Keys, determined to keep those he loves safe from harm. He makes plans to fly his family and friends to the Leeward Islands for a very special occasion, unaware of events taking place on one small uninhabited island located a short distance from his destination—events that will suck him right back into the fray, as a past nemesis rears their head.

Jesse McDermitt has returned to the Florida Keys. But things in the islands are different now. The locals are worried, but nobody can explain why. A sense of foreboding hangs in the humid July air. One of the locals, an investment banker, is waiting tables at the Rusty Anchor Bar and Grill. He seems a shell of the man he used to be—a hollow man whose fortune and wife are gone. Something very sinister is going on—Jesse smells it. He’s usually very good at rooting out the source of a problem, but is stumped this time.

Jesse McDermitt discovers an environmental nightmare of deception and greed taking place in Central America. A cartel is branching into smuggling things other than drugs. And they’re doing it quite effectively. Having so many moving parts and numerous smuggling routes, can Jesse and the crew of Ambrosia, on a dive vacation in the Bay Islands of Honduras, be able to make a difference? Or will the beautiful reef surrounding the island of Utila be Ambrosia’s grave?

It'd been a long time; a lot of things had changed. Since sailing away from Cane Garden Bay, Jesse McDermitt had changed. Waking one morning, the smell of rum still on his breath, Jesse realizes he doesn't much like the change anymore. The mask that he'd freely put on didn't fit right. It was the mask of a drifting, womanizing boat bum, and it concealed his inner turmoil. Peeling off the mask, he soon realizes what a mess he's in.

Paradise has a price. For Jesse McDermitt, that price is his moral compass and a bullet. The retired Marine and charter skipper takes on a passenger in Nassau, a young woman who is a breath of fresh air. She introduces him to the laid-back cruising crowd on an idyllic small cay in the Berry Islands. Jesse takes to the relaxing lifestyle like a fish to water. Living each day on its own terms is a new experience for Jesse, but it doesn't last long. Trouble always seems to find him.

Jesse McDermitt lives in the backcountry and very little happens near him that he's not fully aware of. During a quiet moment, he watches a slow-moving shrimp trawler as it serenely cruises by, barely visible on the horizon at the edge of the three-mile limit. The tranquility of the moment is shattered when the trawler is suddenly demolished in an enormous explosion. What caused the explosion? And why was a woman from Jesse's past on board?

Coral branches rarely wear a wristwatch. That was Jesse McDermitt’s first thought when he found a partially denuded human arm, teeming with crab, lobster, and fish life, during his morning ocean swim. The discovery of a drifting mega-yacht the following day while fishing the Gulf Stream, causes quite a stir among the many alphabet agencies of the federal government, not to mention one shaggy canine.

A Spanish treasure ship is driven by a hurricane onto the rocky shoreline of Elbow Cay in September of 1566. Few of the crew survive, but they manage to salvage most of the treasure and bury it on the island, leaving a clue to its location in a chest placed in the boughs of a young mangrove tree. Four hundred forty years later, Jesse McDermitt and his friends solve the riddle that was hidden inside a chest found encased in the now-ancient mangrove.

An evil spirit murdered a two-bit hustler preacher on French St. Martin. At least, that’s what a conspiracy obsessed Vodou priest would have Jerry Snyder and DJ Martin believe, when they’re called in to investigate the preacher’s stabbing and the kidnapping of his underage girlfriend.