| Title: |
Storm Tide |
 |
| Author: |
Mel Keegan |
| Published by: |
Gay Men's Press, 1996 |
| ISBN: |
0-85449-227-5 [trade paperback, 202 pages] |
Sean Brodie, an American engineer on contract
in Adelaide, and his partner of eight months, local boy Rob Markham, are
struggling to save their relationship by hiring a boat for a week’s
fishing off the wild south Australian coast. As a storm approaches, they
go to the aid of a luxury cabin-cruiser apparently in trouble, only to
find that they’ve stumbled into a drug smuggling gang’s offshore
headquarters. A lucky escape is only the start of their troubles, as they
find their pursuers have unexpected friends on land as well as sea. In
a thriller set for the first time in his native Australia, the popular
author of Fortunes of War, Death’s Head and Equinox
presents another action-packed and gripping adventure.
As is Mr. Keegan’s usual style, the story focuses
very intently upon a central gay male couple. In this, perhaps more so
than in his other novels, he manages to contrive a series of events which
place the central characters into peril so that the suspense and action
hinge upon the characters’ abilities to overcome the peril and survive
with their lives intact. In this story, the relationship between the main
characters, and their desire to sustain that relationship in spite of an
affair one of the men has participated in, is integral to the plot. Unlike
Mr. Keegan’s prior novels, there is a minimum of graphic sex scenes,
although no lack of affection and intimacy between the couple. - Jay Moseley
