Killing Maine by Mike Bond

Killing Maine.  Mike Bond. Mandevilla Press. July 2015. 391 pp.  ISBN#: 9781627040303.  

Special Forces Pono Hawkins veteran is leaving Hawaii to help his former peer, Buddy Franklin.  Hawkins has a checkered past, having been imprisoned for killing a woman.  The circumstances were merciful, but that’s not how others saw it. Up to now, after he’s released, he’s a Hawaiian surfer who teaches others the sport and the atmosphere it brings, thrills and peacefulness at the same time. Now he’s off to help this fellow veteran although there’s no love lost between the two of them.  Franklin’s got a hatred for the powers-that-be who control the industrial wind power turbines being built across the northern Maine lands. 

Wind power is an interesting topic treated in a careful manner in this novel.  The detrimental side effects are categorically stated as illness and death surround the animals and humans living around these wind turbines.  Franklin has taken on the issue in his own way, shooting the turbines so they can’t function.  But now a high-up exec behind the wind power business has been murdered and Franklin is the one who is accused of the death of Ronnie Dalt.  The goal is obviously to get Franklin out of the way and end the trouble he brings with his vehement hatred of those who are in the wind power business or Wind Mafia, as it’s called, for financial gain regardless of the consequences that follow.

There’s another matter that complicates things.  After Hawkins was imprisoned, he told his girlfriend to forget about him.  Now she’s hooked to Franklin.  No spoilers here; Hawkins plunges into his investigation as one never leaves behind a fallen, fellow soldier.  The search brings politicians, lawyers, and other important people into the limelight and someone out of these rich connections is trying not only to stop Hawkins but to kill him.

There’s more than plenty of high-paced action and thrills as Hawkins’ prey get closer.  Read it and root for those who would “save Maine” from the devastating effects of what was originally publicized as an energy source that would tip the scales to energy independence.

Nicely paced and plotted, Mike Bond!  As an aside it just might compel readers to look into its underlying issue as well!