Book Description

Jack Rudloe is a independent insider on the Gulf Coast of the Florida Panhandle, one of the last great places to get a total onslaught of Disneyfication. An effective, longterm fighter for conservation, Rudloe had set out to write the first nonfiction book about small family shrimping, a bellwether trade for the region. What he discovered instead prompted him to write his first novel.Rudloe found that as family fishing is forced into extinction due to greedy realtors, some die-hards refuse to give up their boats and shoreline property and turn instead to making the dangerous "run" to smuggle drugs in a desperate attempt to save their families. It's an astonishing case of traditional Baptist small-town people getting caught up in global crime. What resulted is his amazing tale, which goes like this...Preston Barfield was an upstanding small-family commercial shrimper whose vanishing way of life pressures him into accepting an offer he can't refuse.When Preston gets a panicked call from his brother-in-law Lupino that his boat is on fire, he turns his shrimp trawler offshore to the rescue, only to find Lupino's burning boat filled with smugglers and marijuana. Hard times and desperation force his hand into adventures that he never imagined.The "Forgotten Coast" is forgotten no longer in this riveting novel of plain folks on the edge. A major inside story of this culturally rich area is finally told.