Toxic - Paperback

by Wes Demott (Author)

TOXIC, a story ripped -- as they say -- from the headlines, is Wes DeMott's explosive new thriller in which former FBI Agent Jack Wells fights extraordinary rendition on U.S. soil, police militarization, environmental corruption, disappearing freedoms, and America's reluctant acceptance of an oligarchy. TOXIC could not be more topical or relevant as DeMott mixes hard facts with great fiction, using a global chemical company's poisoning of Roanoke's groundwater, and Well's suicidal fantasy, to expose sad but dangerous truths about American greed, corruption and injustice in a breathtakingly fast-pace read.

Author Biography

Wes is a real-life adventurer who turns life on its head and shakes change from its pockets. A global traveler, yacht rat, intellectual, surf bum, bow-hunter, actor, romantic, former F.B.I./S.W.A.T. Agent and Security Consultant, raconteur and all-around fun guy, Wes can debate Voltaire while wrenching on a greasy diesel far out at sea, or drop into a point break wave as skillfully as he's crept within grasp of wild game. Over the past fifteen years Wes has garnered international acclaim for his novels about P.O.W.s, the FBI, military assassins, and spies. In his beautiful but heartbreaking novel, Loving Zelda, he wrote about hope and loss and the chance to change our lives if we're fearless enough to try. Tortuga Gold reflected a fun new chapter in Wes's own life as he was joined in his global adventures by his beautiful Belgian wife, Sabine, a human rights/refugee lawyer who spent seven of her fifteen years with the United Nations living in Africa, including full-time residency in the war zones of Rwanda, Burundi, and the Congo during their bloody genocides. Wes's love of the ocean often plays into his short stories and novels. He's boated thousands of miles on dozens of his own boats, surfed world famous breaks, and caught or speared game fish since he was thirteen. In 2010, after sailing from the Chesapeake Bay to Florida's West Coast and selling their home, Wes and Sabine made a permanent move aboard their new boat, a trawler they named Wasafiri ("The Wanderers" in Swahili). After a shakedown cruise of 1200 miles, Wes and two crewmen took off for Bocas del Toro, Panama, planning to pick up Sabine in Isla Mujeres, Mexico. But the voyage was cut short when Wes shipwrecked in violent seas off the western tip of Cuba and was rescued by the Carnival Cruise ship, VALOR. The couple rented a flat in a Mexican beach town, and then, in June 2011, they moved to Portland, Oregon to begin exploring America's Pacific Northwest. Their shopping list of replacement items included backpacks, a good knife, Merrill hiking boots, and of course, another adventure hat for Wes. Serial adventurers, the pair bounced around the United States, Central and South America, Europe, The Caribbean, and Canada for a few years, and then in 2016 sold their cruising catamaran sailboat and moved from a South Florida island to the Blue Ridge Mountains.