The Blood Red Sea    by Ron Faust Order:  USA  Can Bantam, 2005 (2005) Paperback Read an Excerpt      Reviewed by Pat Elliott Dan Shaw hates practicing law, so he turns his few pending cases over to a friend and takes to the high seas in his sloop Roamer. Dan does fine alone on his boat until one night a naked, nearly dead woman enters his world. It seems a miracle that Kate is alive after being in the sea for twenty-six hours. Dan believes her when she first pleads amnesia, and then reluctantly confesses that her husband, powerful Cesar Cardinal, deliberately tossed her overboard from their yacht. Cardinal is a rich playboy and diplomat who, Kate says, wants her money and their son Antonio. Cardinal reports his wife's disappearance as a suicide to the news media. Shaw takes Kate to the island resort of a friend where she recuperates. He then pull strings to get her into the United States even though she doesn't have a passport. From there, Shaw and his friends get Kate back to her Virginia family, who were planning a memorial honoring her death at sea. The memorial turns into a celebration of life and who shows up to celebrate? Cesar Cardinal. From this point things get a little wacky. One of Shaw's friends goes off to kidnap little Antonio. Cardinal talks Kate into a reconciliation and Shaw goes abroad again, this time to find Antonio and his kidnapper. This is a page turner, in which a reader must follow the plot lines closely to keep ahead of the writer as he leads Shaw to doubt himself and Kate. Faust's vivid word pictures - of Shaw's solitary life at sea, the slowly evolving romance, the tranquility of an island resort, and the frustration of a man in love attempting to discover truth from fiction - are spectacular. Adventure fans will love The Blood Red Sea (note that Faust also wrote Dead Men Rise Up and Sea of Bones). Note: Opinions expressed in reviews and articles on this site are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of BookLoons. Find more Mystery books on our Shelves or in our book Reviews