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Overview
Dr. Jack Scales, a prominent neurosurgeon, is at the peak of his career. To celebrate, he decides to make up for lost time and buys a sailing yacht christened Slow Dance, for a family cruise to Bermuda. But the family is strained: Jack’s wife Arlen is secretly considering leaving the marriage; Rick, their bipolar twenty-year-old son, may need to be committed to a group home; Haley, a rebellious teenager, would rather be anywhere but trapped on a boat with her family; and Jack himself is not prepared for the challenge of the open sea.
Day by day, the Scales face mounting dangers. A lightning storm nearly destroys the boat, Rick’s unstable condition worsens, and both Arlen and Haley realize that Jack is in over his head. Still, emerging from the storm, they find a fragile unity…until a man adrift on a raft leads them into danger against a terrifying gang of smugglers, who will stop at nothing to gain control of Slow Dance.
Filled with an expert seaman’s knowledge and driven by conflicted characters, Ghosting is a new direction for an established author: a thrilling adventure as unpredictable as the sea itself.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly
Successful neurosurgeon Jack Scales, self-centered and oblivious, sets out with his reluctant wife, teenage daughter, and college-age son on what's intended to be a triumphant cruise aboard his motorized sailboat, Slow Dance, from Long Island to Bermuda in this trite story of outrage and punishment from Poyer (The Crisis). The overconfident, inexperienced sailor shrugs off advice, unaware that his wife loves another man or how unprepared he is for the realities of the sea. A lethal accident is only the first calamity to disrupt the voyage; Slow Dance later nearly sinks in bad weather. When a moment of misguided charity leaves the Scaleses in the hands of a gang of bloodthirsty pirates, the family's survival depends on Jack's limited cunning. Poyer relies on graphic scenes of violence, murder, and rape as well as on moral clichés familiar from action movies, even providing closure with a comforting final moral that contradicts all he has shown us. (Nov.)From the Publisher
SPECTACULAR PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF DAVID POYER
GHOSTING
“Poyer draws on his nautical expertise to create a thrilling and disturbing portrait of what people will do when they have nothing else to lose. This dynamic sea thriller casts plot twists, conflict, and fear into the dark waves of uncertainty and will appeal to fans of Charles Williams’s Dead Calm.”—Library Journal
“Heart of Darkness meets The Perfect Storm. A jolting and darkly disturbing morality play of a family’s fight for survival on the high seas. Packs the punch of a Category Five. Never for one second could I put this one down!” —Andrew Gross, New York Times bestselling author of Reckless
“Plenty of angst, anger, and adventure, told with freshness and tension, from a master craftsman. Ghosting has it all: danger, treachery, action. David Poyer knows the sea. I’ve been reading him for nearly twenty years and he just keeps getting better and better”—Steve Berry, New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Vendetta
“A story so real, so visceral, and so chilling…[does] for sailing enthusiasts what Jaws did to beachgoers.”—Virginia Living
“Poyer holds back no punches… heart-pounding…a taut yarn that could cause you to keep your mooring lines permanently cleated at their dock. —Outlook by the Bay magazine