HEAVEN IS HIGH

A deportation proceeding that seems based on a simple misunderstanding plunges Oregon attorney Barbara Holloway (Cold Case, 2008, etc.) into kidnapping, murder and other high crimes and misdemeanors.

Martin Owens’ bride has an interesting family history. Born in Belize, Binnie Santos, who’s mute, was a passenger on a ship that was hijacked by Domonic Guteriez and his crew of pirates. Her father was slaughtered, her mother became Guteriez’s sex slave when his ship came to port in Haiti and Binnie survived only when Shala Santos, hearing Guteriez haggle over the price a pimp would pay him for Binnie, ran away. Even in the United States, Binnie’s troubles are far from over. Someone has claimed to the immigration authorities that she’s in the country illegally. Unable to produce a birth certificate or any documents proving that she’s not Haitian, she’s vulnerable not only to the INS but to Jeffrey Nicholson of the DEA, who demands that Martin, a retired football player with a significant following, turn snitch for him in return for his agency’s help. After hearing their story and trying in vain to fob them off on an immigration specialist, Barbara flies south in an attempt to confirm Binnie’s story so that if she’s deported, it’ll be to her family in Belize. Almost immediately she finds that even greater dangers await Binnie in Belize than the pirates hoping she’ll be sent back to Haiti.

A book that includes sex, drugs, piracy, a homicidally dysfunctional family, official corruption on two continents and a rousing finale that will bring all your moral self-righteousness to the surface.